The person/s you had flagged on had left the server, so you were able to recall, then when you were in your house, the person/s you had flagged on entered the same server as you (not necessarily anywhere near where you were) thus you were flagged again and so could not open the chests,
*headdesk*
Step by step summary of what happened:
1) I went to Yew Gate
2) I flagged on someone.
3) Once more people from the person's guild showed up, I ended up running around for several minutes, not doing anything but healing myself with pots and an occasional heal/gheal.
4) During my running around, I attempted to enter a house, since the timer should have expired on the person I originally flagged on. I was unable to do so the entire time.
5) Once I ran out of heal pots, I went down to a shield bash.
6) I res'd up by the entrance to Heartwood, at the Agent of the Crown.
7) I recalled to my house. If I were still flagged, I would not have been able to do this.
8) I attempted to enter my house, but was unable to even get on the front steps, as if I were still flagged. Obviously I was NOT flagged since I was able to recall from Yew to my house, which is in an area north of Britain.
9) I logged out and logged back in. Once this was done, I was able to enter my house.
If I'm able to recall, I should be able to enter a house. If I can do one and not the other, requiring me to log out, there is clearly something wrong with the flagging mechanics. Granted, it is not a frequent occurrence, and in fact, it's the first time I've seen it happen, but it should not happen at all.
...actually, wait. When vvv was introduced, this happened with towns too. If one started/was in progress and I was on a character that was in vvv, I would have to log out twice to be able to switch chars; this was right after I had logged in on a vvv char, and would obviously not have been subject to the combat timer. To the best of my knowledge, that particular flagging issue was fixed.
