diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 8d9f757..e226355 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,10 +1,18 @@
 ubuntu-dev-tools (0.45ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low
 
+  [ Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals ]
   * common.py:
      - Trying to read from a locked sqlite cookie database isn't a fatal
        error anymore.
 
- -- Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals <rainct@ubuntu.com>  Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:46:55 +0200
+  [ Adrien Cunin ]
+  * update-maintainer:
+     - check at the beginning of the script that the necessary files are
+       readable/writable, and note which control files we are going to modify
+     - at the end, only modify those control files, so that the script doesn't
+       return 1 anymore when it was actually successful
+
+ -- Adrien Cunin <adri2000@ubuntu.com>  Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:10:08 +0200
 
 ubuntu-dev-tools (0.44ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low
 
diff --git a/update-maintainer b/update-maintainer
index 5403ef4..d321f14 100755
--- a/update-maintainer
+++ b/update-maintainer
@@ -66,6 +66,20 @@ else
     echo "Please execute «$0» in the source folder." >&2 && exit 1
 fi
 
+if [ ! -r $DEBIANDIR/changelog ]
+then
+    echo "Make sure that the changelog file is readable." >&2 && exit 1
+fi
+
+for file in control{,.in,.real}; do
+    if [ -f $DEBIANDIR/$file ]; then
+        if [ ! -r $DEBIANDIR/$file -o ! -w $DEBIANDIR/$file ]; then
+            echo "Make sure that the control file(s) is (are) readable and writable." >&2 && exit 1
+        fi
+        controls="$controls $file"
+    fi
+done
+
 if [ -z "$(head -1 $DEBIANDIR/changelog | grep -E '\(*ubuntu.*\)')" ]
 then
 	echo "Latest changelog entry has no Ubuntu version number." >&2
@@ -95,6 +109,6 @@ case $section in
     *)      echo "No section found for this package; aborting" >&2; exit 1 ;;
 esac
 
-for file in control{,.in,.real}; do
-    [ -f $DEBIANDIR/$file ] && sed -ri "s/(^Maintainer:) (.*)/\1 $email\nXSBC-Original-\1 \2/" $DEBIANDIR/$file
+for file in $controls; do
+    sed -ri "s/(^Maintainer:) (.*)/\1 $email\nXSBC-Original-\1 \2/" $DEBIANDIR/$file
 done