A key plan for offices behind one shared entrance starts by splitting the doors into two layers: the shared entrance everyone uses, and the private door to each office. Decide who controls each layer before touching hardware or copying keys. The building owner or manager usually controls the shared door, and each tenant controls its own office, but confirm that arrangement rather than assuming it.
Shared access and private access are separate questions
A building with one front door and several rented offices has two kinds of access. The shared layer is the entrance, plus any back door or common room, that everyone passes through. The private layer is the door to each office, which only that tenant and the people they choose should open. Each layer needs its own answer to one question: who decides who gets in?
Mixing the layers is how informal plans drift. Keys get copied for whoever asks, one key ends up opening two offices, and nobody can say who holds what. Keep the layers separate on paper before you make any lock or key decision.
What to find out before you plan anything
Start with an inventory. It takes a walk through the building and a notebook, nothing more.
- Every door: the main entrance, any side or rear entrance, doors to shared rooms such as a kitchen, storage, or mail area, and each office door.
- Who occupies each office, and which of their staff actually need to come and go.
- Who has authority over the shared doors. This is usually the building owner or property manager, not any one tenant, but confirm it with them directly.
- Who holds keys today and how many copies exist for each door, including copies held by cleaners, past staff, or former tenants.
If nobody kept records, mark those copies as unknown. An honest unknown is useful because it flags the doors whose keys may need changing rather than copying.
The decisions, in order
With the inventory done, settle these in order. Each answer depends on the one before.
- Mark each door shared or private. A door that two tenants use is shared, even if it looks like an office door.
- List who needs to open each door. Staff who arrive early need the entrance, and a visiting contractor may need one office only.
- Decide who issues access and where the record lives. Shared doors usually run through the owner or manager, and private doors through each tenant.
- Decide what happens when someone leaves: which keys come back, who collects them, and what changes if one does not.
- Decide what happens when a key is lost. A lost office key mainly affects that tenant. A lost entrance key affects the whole building, so the owner and the other tenants need to hear about it.
Turnover and lost keys are the cases informal plans skip, and they are exactly when a plan gets tested.
How one office's access can expose the others
The shared entrance links every tenant's security. When a front door key goes missing, every office behind that door is more exposed, even though no office lock has changed. A key that opens several offices works the same way. If your office key also turns the front door lock, write that down. One key carrying two layers costs more to lose.
Keyed entry and electronic entry differ mainly in how access gets taken away. With metal keys, removing someone means getting the key back or changing the lock so old keys stop working. Access control, meaning a card, fob, or code system, lets whoever manages it remove a person without collecting anything. An intercom lets someone inside admit a visitor without handing out an entrance key. If the entrance key list changes often and is hard to track, raise access control or an intercom with the owner.
What to hand a locksmith
A written summary lets a locksmith understand the building before suggesting anything. Include the door list marked shared or private, who uses each door, the current key count and who holds each copy, and written approval from the owner or manager for any work on shared doors. Add past problems too: keys that went missing, locks changed before, or copies nobody can account for. The same list tells whoever cuts new keys how many go to whom.
Nostrand Locksmith handles commercial lock work, intercom, and access control in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, and elsewhere in Brooklyn. When your summary is ready, call (516) 644-8976 to talk through the shared doors and the private ones.
Frequently asked questions
Can one tenant change the lock on a shared entrance by themselves?
A tenant who changes a shared entrance lock alone leaves every other tenant, and often the owner, without a working key. Decisions about a shared entrance usually belong to the building owner or property manager. Raise the problem with them first and agree on who receives new keys before any lock is changed.
Should every office have a copy of the shared entrance key?
Each office behind a shared entrance needs a way in, but not every staff member needs their own entrance key. Fewer copies are easier to track. One approach gives each tenant a set number of entrance keys and records who holds them. Another uses an intercom or access control so fewer physical keys circulate.
How often should a small business review who holds its keys?
A small business should review its key list whenever someone with a key leaves, whenever a tenant moves in or out, and after any lost key. Between those events, tie a review to a date you already track, such as a lease renewal, and compare the written record against the keys people actually hold.
What should we do about keys a former tenant may still have?
Compare the keys a former tenant returned against the keys they were issued. If any copy is unaccounted for, or nobody knows how many existed, the usual answer is to rekey or change the affected locks so old keys stop working. For the shared entrance, that decision goes to the owner or manager, and remaining tenants need new keys.