Your Roommate Moved Out. When Can You Change the Locks?

When they no longer have a legal right to be there. That is not the same day they carried the last box out, and the gap between those two dates is where otherwise reasonable people commit a class A misdemeanor.

That is the short version, and the good news is that the test is clearer than most tenant-law questions. There is a statute, it names lock-changing specifically, and it gives you a number to check.

The statute that decides this

Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law § 768 makes unlawful eviction a crime in New York, and it does not describe the offence in vague terms. It names the act directly, listing among the prohibited conduct:

removing, plugging or otherwise rendering the lock ... inoperable, or changing the lock ... without supplying the occupant with a key

So a lock change is not a grey-area move that might later be characterised as an eviction. It is the textbook example the legislature wrote down.

The second half is the part that decides your situation. The statute protects an:

occupant of a dwelling unit who has lawfully occupied the dwelling unit for thirty consecutive days or longer or who has entered into a lease

Read the “or” carefully. A lease, or thirty consecutive days. Either one is enough. There is no requirement that the person be on the lease, pay rent, or be known to the landlord.

And the consequences are not nominal. A violation is a class A misdemeanor. The civil penalty is “not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars for each violation,” and a person who fails to restore the occupant can face a further penalty of up to one hundred dollars per day.

The three situations, and which one you are in

One: your roommate is on the lease. They are a co-tenant with their own right of possession, equal to yours. You cannot end that by changing a cylinder, and it makes no difference who found the apartment, who pays more, or who has been living there longer. A co-tenant’s name comes off a lease through the landlord and a new or amended lease, or through a court. Not through a locksmith.

Two: your roommate is not on the lease but has lived there thirty consecutive days or more. This is the situation people get wrong, and it is by far the most common. The subtenant, the partner who moved in, the friend who stayed on the sofa and then just stayed. Section 768 protects them by occupancy, not by paperwork. Thirty consecutive days is the whole test, and it is a low bar that most people clear without either party thinking about it.

Three: they have genuinely gone. The lease has ended, or they have surrendered the apartment, or they were never an occupant in the first place. Now you can rekey, and you probably should.

If you are in situation one or two and the departure is contested, the person to call is a tenant attorney or a housing clinic, not us. That is not us being cautious for the sake of it. It is that a lock change in those situations creates a second, worse problem on top of the one you already have.

“But their name is not on the lease”

This is the single most expensive sentence in this subject, and we hear it constantly.

It feels decisive because it sounds like the whole question is about the contract. It is not. Section 768 keys protection to lawful occupancy for thirty consecutive days, entirely separately from whether anyone signed anything. Someone can have no lease, pay you cash, never meet the landlord, and still be an occupant the statute protects.

The related mistake is thinking that a physical move-out settles it. If someone has taken most of their belongings but still has a key and has not surrendered the apartment, the situation is ambiguous, and ambiguity is not the footing you want when the remedy against you is a misdemeanor plus a four-figure civil penalty.

What resolves it is a surrender: a clear, written, dated statement that they have given up occupancy and returned the keys.

Get the surrender in writing, then rekey

This is the entire practical answer, and it costs nothing.

Before anyone changes a lock, get a message that establishes three things, and a text thread is fine:

1. They have moved out, with the date.
2. They have returned all keys, including copies, mailbox, and any building fob.
3. They are not coming back, in whatever words they naturally use.

You are not drafting a legal document. You are creating a dated record that the person left voluntarily, which is precisely the fact that separates a lawful rekey from an unlawful eviction. In an amicable departure this takes one message and nobody finds it strange.

Then rekey. Do not skip that half because things ended well.

Once they are properly gone, rekey anyway

People who part on good terms often decide a lock change would be insulting. It is worth separating the two things, because the reason to rekey has nothing to do with trust in the person leaving.

Over a two-year shared tenancy, keys get copied. A partner had one. A key was cut for a dog walker, a cleaner, a visiting parent. One was lost in year one and quietly replaced without mention. Your departing roommate cannot return copies they do not know exist, and no amount of goodwill changes that.

Rekeying starts at $75 per cylinder, and a typical apartment door with a knob and a deadbolt runs $150 to $185 for both. It is an hour of work and it invalidates every key in existence, known and unknown, at once. That is the point: it does not depend on anyone remembering anything.

Job	NYC cost
Rekey, per cylinder	from $75
Typical apartment, knob and deadbolt rekeyed	$150 – $185
Key duplication, per key	$30 – $85
Lock installation or replacement, per opening	$125 – $450

Rekeying keeps your existing hardware and re-pins it to a new key, which is why it costs a fraction of a lock replacement and is almost always the right job here. Our lock change and rekeying service covers all five boroughs with a firm price before any work starts.

Two things to sort out with the landlord

Ask before you rekey if you are a tenant. Many NYC leases require the landlord to hold a working key, and in a building where the super’s master opens apartment doors for emergencies, a rekey that locks the building out of its own access will surface at the worst moment. A locksmith can rekey a cylinder so the building master still works. That is a normal request, not a special favour.

Deal with the lease itself. Removing a departed roommate from the lease, or getting a new one issued, is between you and the landlord. A rekey changes who can open the door. It does not change who is liable for the rent, and forgetting that is how people end up chasing someone for a share of rent months later.

If you installed your own lock under Multiple Dwelling Law § 51-c, the rules are slightly different again, and we set them out in can a tenant change the locks in NYC. If a landlord later tries to bill you for the rekey, that is governed separately, and we covered it in can your NYC landlord charge you for a lock change.

The same reasoning applies at the other end of a tenancy, when you are the one arriving and the question is who still holds a key from before you moved in. That is changing the locks when moving into a NYC apartment.

What we will ask when you call

We ask who else lives in the apartment, and whether they have moved out. Some people find that surprising from a locksmith.

The reason is straightforward. A lock change against an occupant with a right to be there is a crime under § 768, and it is the customer who is exposed, not just the person who turned up with the tools. Asking takes ten seconds and it keeps a routine $150 job from turning into a legal problem for someone who did not know the rule existed.

If the answer is that the situation is contested, we will tell you to speak to a tenant attorney first. That is the honest answer even though it means not doing the job that day.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change the locks when my roommate moves out in NYC?

Once they have genuinely surrendered the apartment and returned their keys, yes, and it is a good idea. While they still have a legal right to occupy, no. RPAPL § 768 specifically names changing the lock without supplying a key as unlawful eviction, and it protects anyone who has lawfully occupied for thirty consecutive days or longer, or who has a lease.

My roommate is not on the lease. Does that change anything?

Usually not. Section 768 protects an occupant who has lawfully occupied the unit for thirty consecutive days or longer, entirely separately from whether they signed a lease. Someone with no lease who has lived there over a month is generally protected.

What if they have already moved their things out?

Better, but not automatically enough on its own, particularly if they still hold keys and have not said they are gone for good. Get a dated written confirmation that they have moved out, returned all keys, and are not returning. Then rekey.

What happens if I change the locks anyway?

Unlawful eviction under § 768 is a class A misdemeanor, with a civil penalty of not less than one thousand and not more than ten thousand dollars for each violation, plus a possible further penalty of up to one hundred dollars per day for failing to restore occupancy.

Should I rekey even if we are on good terms?

Yes. The issue is copies you do not know about, cut over the course of the tenancy for partners, cleaners, or visitors. Your roommate cannot hand back keys they are unaware of. A rekey from $75 per cylinder cancels all of them at once.

Do I need my landlord’s permission?

Check your lease. Many require the landlord to keep a working key, and in buildings with a master key system the cylinder may need to stay on it. Tell the managing agent what you are doing. A rekey that preserves the building master is straightforward to arrange.