Lock Rekeying in Sacramento, CA

Rental turnover and Chapter 8.120

Sacramento's Rental Housing Inspection Program is set up under Article II of City Code Chapter 8.120, and rental units in it are inspected on a routine, periodic basis. The city's registration form calls it unlawful to run rental housing without registering and paying the annual fee. Under Section 8.120.030, the definition of a rental housing unit takes in apartments, condominiums, duplexes and single-family houses, so one rented house counts just as an apartment building does. One exemption covers a unit that passed final city inspection as new construction within the past five years.

When tenants change, the keys from the last tenancy are no longer accounted for. Rekeying resets the pins inside the cylinder so earlier keys no longer turn it, while the lock stays on the door. For a landlord between tenants, that means the previous tenant's keys can stop working without new hardware. This is general information, not legal advice.

Buying a house with a long key history

South Natomas developed mostly as residential subdivisions from the 1950s to the 1980s, and in the 2024 American Community Survey about 41 percent of California's homes were built from 1950 to 1979. A house from that era may have changed hands, or tenants, more than once, so nobody may know how many keys are still out there: past owners, tenants, contractors, a relative who once watered the plants. If the locks work well, rekeying after closing retires all of those keys without new hardware. If they are worn, stiff or mismatched, lock replacement may suit the door better.

Consider asking for the front, back, side and garage-to-house doors to be keyed alike, so one key carries the household. That is simplest when the locks share a keyway, so a house with a mix of brands may need one or two locks swapped first.

What to include in a rekeying request

• the number of exterior doors and the lock on each
• the brand stamped on the lock face or key heads, if you can read it
• how many keys you want
• whether you are the owner, a landlord between tenants, or a tenant with the landlord's approval
• your ZIP code and neighborhood

The service page is lock rekeying, and Sacramento covers more of the city.