Smart locks for city centre and Salford flats

An apartment has a building entrance and a flat door. The building entrance is the managing agent's, and in most blocks it is not available to change at any price — it may be on a fob system, a video entry panel, or staffed.

So the honest answer for a city centre flat is usually: a smart lock on your own door, and whatever the building already uses for the entrance. Anyone coming to you needs both, and that is worth understanding before you buy a lock expecting it to solve the whole journey.

Most flats here are leasehold, and the lease usually says something about alterations. In practice a reversible lock change on your own flat door is rarely a problem, but fire regulations sometimes are — a flat entrance door in a block is often a fire door with a certification that depends on what is fitted to it.

We treat that as a specification question and raise it before quoting. An installer who does not mention it on a block door is not doing you a favour.

This is where most of our city centre work comes from, and the building entrance problem is the reason. Guests need to get through both doors, at night, having never been there.

We survey both and tell you what is genuinely achievable — sometimes a lock plus a sensible arrangement with the concierge, occasionally nothing, if the management company will not have it. See holiday lets and Airbnb.