diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 3b4ae13eb5f..bb78bd0bd3e 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -40,6 +40,8 @@ Hbase Change Log
    HBASE-27    hregioninfo cell empty in meta table
    HBASE-501   Empty region server address in info:server entry and a
                startcode of -1 in .META.
+   HBASE-516   HStoreFile.finalKey does not update the final key if it is not
+               the top region of a split region
    
   IMPROVEMENTS
    HBASE-415   Rewrite leases to use DelayedBlockingQueue instead of polling
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HStoreFile.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HStoreFile.java
index a979e4028f8..4b658090585 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HStoreFile.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/regionserver/HStoreFile.java
@@ -19,9 +19,12 @@
  */
 package org.apache.hadoop.hbase.regionserver;
 
+import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
+import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
 import java.io.DataInput;
 import java.io.DataInputStream;
 import java.io.DataOutput;
+import java.io.DataOutputStream;
 import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
@@ -892,7 +895,14 @@ public class HStoreFile implements HConstants {
       } else {
         reset();
         Writable value = new ImmutableBytesWritable();
-        key = super.getClosest(midkey, value, true);
+        WritableComparable k = super.getClosest(midkey, value, true);
+        ByteArrayOutputStream byteout = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
+        DataOutputStream out = new DataOutputStream(byteout);
+        k.write(out);
+        ByteArrayInputStream bytein =
+          new ByteArrayInputStream(byteout.toByteArray());
+        DataInputStream in = new DataInputStream(bytein);
+        key.readFields(in);
       }
     }