LogFAQs > #942920700

Monopoman posted...

In short the apartment owner has full rights to change things in your apartment

No, tenancy laws place pretty considerable restrictions on what owners can and can't do to occupied rental properties. They have to, given the massive imbalance of power between renters and landlords. Generally speaking, reasonable changes that don't have a significant impact on the tenants' quality of life are permitted, given proper notice and accommodations, but there are still laws that must be followed.

Monopoman posted...

The change they are making is super small and will be basically 0 inconvenience to you.

The fact that he's going to be liable for anyone breaking into his apartment after the new stuff is put in place is almost certainly going to result in an increase in his tenant insurance rates, if his insurance company gets wind of that. His building excusing themselves of any responsibility for maintaining working locks is a pretty huge deal, and doesn't exactly inspire confidence in how secure these news systems are. Giving themselves the ability to adjust his thermostat is also potentially a problem (see possibility outlined above of using it to drive him out without actually having to go through the legal eviction process), especially with no restrictions outlined in the agreement. And then there's the privacy issue (the addendum explicitly includes giving the service provider the ability to collect personally identifiable data as they see fit), plus expecting tenants to pay for renovations to the building after leaving if they don't want to get on board right now (which is very much not the pretense under which the security deposit was collected when the lease was signed).

All in all, it's pretty questionable, and the fact that they're rushing this out in what I can only imagine is a bid to scare people into signing before they have chance to consult legal counsel tells me they recognize that. If I had to guess, the building owners had an offer to reduce their insurance costs if they made this upgrade, and they're trying to railroad it through without having to deal with the potentially complicated legalities of it all.