When buying a house, there are a lot of things that can occupy your mind, like changing your address in official papers, unpacking your things and decorating the place, and most especially, meet the new neighbors. With so many things to do, you might be wondering if it is really necessary to change the locks in your house. After all, you already own the place and no one has a copy of your house, or so you thought. When moving into a new house, whether it is a new one or a previously owned one, you should always change all of the locks in your house.
Homeowners usually create spare copy of keys for each room of their house, which means that chances are, they may still have a copy of a key to your house even though the contract states that all keys should be surrendered to the new owner upon final sale of property. This may be a red flag for your home’s security as some home burglaries are often caused by previous home owners. Other possible people who might have a copy of your key are: realtors, friends of the previous owner, anyone who had found the key, and the builders who used to work on your house. It is important to change the locks of your house to prevent other people from entering your house.
When you are a new tenant renting for a place to stay, you have the right to ask the owner or the manager of the building to change the locks when moving in. In apartments, the locks have a master key that can open any door in the building, which is used by the maintenance personnel. Before moving in, you should talk to the owner or the manager about the terms and conditions of changing your lock and owning a spare key.
If you do own a house and you want to prevent other people with a spare key from possibly breaking into your home, you have two options: either changing the lock or to rekey the locks. If you want to be more secure, then changing the lock is for you. Changing the lock can be quite expensive and time-consuming since you have to physically remove the lock from the door and buy a new one. There is a possibility that you have to replace the whole door if the newer model does not fit with the previous lock. If you just want to make sure that other spare key won’t work, you only need to rekey the lock. Rekeying the lock is done by changing the configurations of the interior of the lock. Once the configurations are changed, the spare key won’t work on the newly-rekeyed lock.
When changing the locks in your house, you can either change it yourself, or you can hire a locksmith to do it for you. If you are confident with your crafting skills and you want to save a bit of money, then you can change the lock by yourself, but if you don’t know how to fix and repair things, it is better that you call a locksmith to do it for you. There may be an extra charge for service fee, but you can be sure that the locks are properly installed. If you chose to rekey your lock, you will have to call a locksmith since they are the only ones with proper training and skills to effectively rekey the lock. When changing the locks of your door, you shouldn’t just change the locks of the front door. It is also highly recommended that you should change the locks of the other doors that can be used to enter your house like the garage, the backyard, and even the basement to ensure that no one can enter your house. To add more security to your house, you should also consider adding a deadbolt so that even if they can unlock the door using the spare key, they still won’t be able to open the door because of the deadbolt.
Whether it is a new home or a previously-owned one, you should always change the locks of your house so you and your family can be safe in your own home.