When It Is and Isn't Okay for Management to Enter My Apartment

This article originally appeared on the Springs "You're Home Blog."

At our Springs luxury apartment communities, your comfort and satisfaction is our main concern. As we strive to maintain a high level of excellence, it may sometimes be necessary for a member of our on-site management team to enter your apartment. Springs management teams try their best to give advance notice whenever possible, however, occasionally emergencies do occur.

What constitutes a legitimate reason for management to enter your apartment? Here are the established guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable conditions.

When Management is Allowed to Enter Your Apartment

• With proper notice, usually 24 hours, management visits are allowed for the following purposes:
• Repairs
• Showing the apartment to prospective residents
• Inspections for damage, safety compliance or insurance and mortgage companies
• In case of emergency, such as fire or major water leak, prior notice is waived and management may enter an apartment immediately.
• Immediate entry is also allowed if there is reason to believe that the lease is being violated or the apartment has been abandoned.
• Entry is permitted anytime you, the resident, give permission, even if no notice has been submitted. This would include service requests.

When Management is NOT Allowed to Enter Your Apartment

• Management cannot enter your apartment just to "check up" on you. If it's determined that an emergency check is needed, the police will be called.
• For non-emergencies, entry must be made during reasonable hours. While "reasonable" is not usually defined, it's generally interpreted as weekdays, and some states specify a restriction to normal business hours.
• Continued unreasonable refusal can eventually lead to eviction under the grounds of lease violation.

It's helpful to learn the specific rules of your particular state. You should be able to find a copy of state statutes in your local library, or you can get information from the Attorney General's office or Consumer Protection Agency. The friendly members of our on-site management teams are also available to answer any of your questions.