You have collected the keys, the van is half unloaded and the last thing on your mind is the front door lock. But you have no way of knowing how many copies of those keys exist, or who still has one. For most homes in Padiham, changing the locks is a quick, fairly cheap job that is worth doing in the first week.
When you buy or rent a house you are handed whatever keys the previous occupier chose to pass on. That says nothing about the spares given over the years to relatives, neighbours, cleaners, dog walkers, builders, former partners or old tenants. Most standard keys can be copied at a key cutting kiosk in minutes, with no record kept.
The risk is not that the previous owner is dishonest. It is that nobody, including them, can account for every copy. If someone lets themselves in with a key there is no sign of forced entry, and home insurers will often look hard at a theft claim where nothing was broken to get in.
New builds are not exempt. Site staff and several trades commonly hold keys during construction, and some developments use a builder's key system that is supposed to stop working once the owner's key is first used. It is worth having this checked instead of assuming.
What needs changing depends a lot on the door. Padiham has a real mix of housing, from stone terraces off Burnley Road and around the town centre to semis and newer estates out towards the bypass, and the locks vary to match.
In most cases only the cylinder or the lock case is swapped, not the whole door mechanism, which keeps the cost and the time down.
Prices depend on the number of doors, the type of lock and the security grade you choose, so treat these as rough guides and not fixed quotes. Around Padiham and Burnley, replacing a standard euro cylinder during normal working hours typically comes to somewhere in the region of £60 to £100 per door fitted. An anti-snap cylinder rated to TS007 3 star or Sold Secure Diamond usually lands between about £90 and £150 fitted.
A British Standard BS3621 mortice deadlock on a timber door is more work and commonly costs between £100 and £170 fitted. Doing several doors in one visit normally works out cheaper per lock than separate call outs, and you can ask for the locks to be keyed alike so one key opens front and back.
Evenings, weekends and emergency call outs cost more. A move is something you can plan for, so book a weekday slot for the day you get the keys or shortly after.
If you are paying for new locks anyway, it makes sense to check they meet the standard your insurer expects. Many policies ask for a five lever mortice deadlock to BS3621 on timber doors, or a multipoint lock on uPVC and composite doors. Read your policy wording, because a lock that falls short can affect a claim.
Lock snapping is a known method of forced entry on older euro cylinders across East Lancashire. If the cylinder on your new door sticks out more than a few millimetres from the handle, or has no kitemark or star rating stamped on it, an anti-snap replacement is a sensible upgrade.
Look for the BS kitemark on the faceplate of a mortice lock, visible on the edge of the door when it is open. No kitemark usually means it is not to the insurance standard.
Tenants should not change locks without the landlord's permission, as most tenancy agreements forbid it. It is entirely reasonable to ask your landlord or letting agent whether the locks were changed after the last tenant left, and to request it if they were not. Many landlords will agree, since it protects their property as well.
If you are a landlord with a property in Padiham, changing the cylinders between tenancies is a small cost that removes any doubt about who still holds a key.
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