Lock changes for landlords

Lock changes for landlords

If you own a holiday let property, you should be well aware of the new fire regulations that suddenly hit last summer. I know many of you have been spending all your profits to ensure your properties are up to scratch for the coming season.

But what about long term lets?

The fire risk assessment to be carried out by holiday let owners states;  ‘any property you pay to stay in. ‘If that doesn’t already mean long term lets, then it certainly will if the government of the day decides that the measures taking place with holiday lets are a success. After all, the more they make you spend, the more they get in tax.

If you own properties that you let out to tenants, then it might be an idea to get ahead of the curve. Lock changes for landlords; locks are changed all the time through abuse, lost keys, evicted tenants etc. What better time than now to make sure that the new locks going in are keyless escape versions. In the event of a fire, your tenants can get out quickly without having to find keys in a panic situation?

AC Locksmiths Norfolk can change your locks for you. Replacements are kite marked products. All insurances will be valid.

Thumb turn exit lock, Lock changes for landlords

But while thumb turn (escape) locks are great for getting out easily, they can be a reduction in your security. There are tools that can go in through letterboxes and rotate the inner thumb turns, it is important to consider options to cancel this short fall. Letter catching cages are a great remedy to this, or mounting a post box outside your house, while disabling any door positioned letter plates is even better.

Letter cage

Changes are coming. I have spoken to several holiday let owners who have changed locks recently, only to have to change them again in light of the new legislation. It’s worth thinking about being ready for the inevitable.

Any questions regarding the above, please do not hesitate to contact me through any of my contact methods. https://www.ac-locksmiths-norfolk.co.uk/contact-us-here/

Thanks for reading.


Holiday lets & keyless exit point regulations

Holiday let owners – are you aware of holiday let and keyless exit point regulations?

In light of the new self assessment fire regulations for owners of holiday lets, here are some things I have noticed people getting wrong:

Firstly, your front door and back door may not be the only fire escapes. If you are in a room with French doors and the fire is the other side of the interior doors, then the French doors are your exit point. Every final exit door is a fire exit and therefore every final exit door must me converted to keyless escape.

Secondly, if you have a porch, the inner door must either be converted as well or left unlockable by the customers. This can be as simple as taking away that key. Alternatively, convert the inner door and remove the key for the outer porch. Either way, the entire route must be keyless escape to meet the keyless exit point regulations.

Finally, this conversion is a serious impact on security. There are tools available that can come in through the letterbox and rotate the thumb turn/push the lever. As these are your holiday lets, I doubt you get much worthwhile mail, so either invest in a letterbox guard, letter collecting basket or seal off the letter box and put a posting box on the wall outside.

So what does the conversion to keyless exit point regulations consist of?

Well, if you have a door with a lift handle mechanism then it simply means changing your double key cylinder for a key and turn cylinder

keyless exit point regulations changes

Double key cylinder

Key & turn cylinder

Key & turn cylinder

Prices start from £55, although I see no reason to go for high spec when you are making life easy for the burglar under these new regulations.

If you have a wooden door, you are turning this into this

On wooden doors, you also have the option to install a kite marked nightlatch /Yale type lockNightlatch/Yale lock

If you need me to come and do a keyless escape conversion for you, please book a free assessment/measure up where I will give you a final no obligation quote and book you for fitting at the next convenient date. Most work can be carried out during changeover days.


Landlord lock law change

Landlord lock law change:

I have just been reading through the Home Office Document: A guide to making your small paying-guest-accommodation safe from fire.’ A guide to compliance with fire safety law for those responsible for safety in small paying-guest-accommodation’

You can find the document here

Note this says fire safety law and therefore is the legal requirement of all landlords, certainly for those with holiday lets. I would argue long term tenants are also paying guests as they have no right to remain when a landlord decides they want their property back for any reason.

Speaking to a letting agency recently, I have also discovered that it will be expected of all landlords to read the document and comply with all points mentioned. You won’t always get a risk assessor to check things for you. You, as the landlord are entirely responsible should a fire break out. It is quite heavy reading and most of it is obvious, but it is my job to point out relevant issues to my own line of work.

In section 6, there is this statement:

Exit doors, such as the front or back door, should always be easy to unlock and must not need a key to unlock them from the inside. A simple latch or thumb turn is usually good enough. However, you may need to consider whether all guests are able to open these doors. A simple single action turn handle or lever will often be more appropriate.’

This means you must have a lock with a thumb turn on the inside. Something like this:

Thumb turn euro cylinder - Landlord lock law change

On all upvc type doors, this is simply a matter of changing the cylinder. On doors with mortice (often called ‘Chubb’ type) locks, you will need to change the lock, handles and purchase a cylinder. And while thumb turns are great for fire escapes, they do pose a security risk as it is possible with certain tools to go in through the letterbox and rotate the thumb turn to gain access. Therefore any locks with thumb turns on a door with a letter plate, should also purchase a letter plate guard to alleviate this problem.

The point is repeated on the checklist included in the document: ‘Are frequent checks carried out to ensure exit routes are kept clear and fire exits remain easily openable?’

That is your prompt to make sure no one can lock a door, remove the key and then be unable to get out while panicking in a fire.

October the 1st is the current date for this to become law over advice.

If you have your work done through AC Locksmiths Norfolk, you can expect to pay £55 for a kite marked thumb turn euro cylinder. These can be brass/gold, chrome, polished chrome, dual finish, black or white. An average of £50 to replace your mortice lock with a mortice euro lock case. Handles start at £25 but average at £45. More ornate handles such as wrought iron up to £200. In all cases, a labour fee of £75 is payable. (All prices correct at time of writing, but please get binding quote at measuring stage). In almost all instances, a measuring visit will be required. This is free to all properties within a half hour drive of Holt, Norfolk.

Should you have any questions regarding the above information, please do not hesitate to contact me; 07846643176

Thanks for reading.


New Laws for Holiday Lets

 

New laws for Holiday lets

New laws for holiday lets; Very soon, all holiday let properties are going to be required by law to be keyless exit in case of emergencies. For properties with UPVC or similar doors where the handle needs to be pushed up before locking, the lock changes are straight forward and the existing cylinder just needs to be changed for one that has a thumb turn on the inside rather than a key.

But if you have a wooden door with a mortice (Chubb type) lock, then you will need a complete conversion kit consisting of replacement lock case, thumb turn cylinder and Euro cylinder handles. Most of this is straight forward, but sourcing handles to match your existing ones can be a drain.

If you do not get this work done and your tenants have an emergency, there will be no cover from your insurance should the worst happen due to them not being able to escape.

Here at AC Locksmiths Norfolk, we are happy to work around your changeover days and with your management company to get the locks changed seamlessly without hassle for you or your customers.

Should you require any more information about the new laws for holiday lets – or anything else, please contact me for an informal chat.

 


Business Properties & secure fire exits

It is well known that business properties, especially where the public has access, should have  secure fire exit doors, which means that all locked doors should be able to be opened from the inside without a key.

But many people renting out properties for holidays do not realise that these fire exits should have easy escape capabilities. The logic behind this is that if the lock is key operated on the inside, the customers may well lock the door, put the key somewhere safe, and then should the worst happen and a fire break out, in their panic and being away from home, they could well forget where they have put the key and be caught in a tragic accident.

So if your wooden door has a nightlatch (often called a ‘Yale’ lock), and that lock has a British Standard Kite mark, you are fine.

Secure fire exits with correct locks

If your wooden door has a mortice (often called a ‘Chubb’ lock), with key operation on both sides, there is a conversion that can be done to use a Euro Cylinder that has a thumb turn on the inside. This means changing the lock and handles but can use the existing space with minimal visible change.

If your door is UPVC or has any mechanism where the handles must be lifted before locking, it is a simple matter of swapping the existing Euro Cylinder for one with a thumb turn on the inside.

This is a key both sides Euro Cylinder:

And this is a standard thumb turn Euro Cylinder:

There is a slight worry with installing these fire escape systems, though and that is I have a tool that can go in through letter boxes and turn the thumb turn allowing me access to the property. We have two solutions. Firstly, certain thumb turns on the very best cylinders are designed to be difficult for tools to turn. They might require a push while turning or just plain difficult for the tool to purchase.

Alternatively, you can buy specially designed sloped guards for your letterbox (although even these can be bypassed with ever more clever locksmith tools).

Or better yet a letter catching cage on the back of your door will stop all tools that I know of at time of writing.

If you own or run holiday lets, you might find your public liability insurance does not pay out if you have not taken the correct measures to ensure the safety of your guests.

I am noticing a lot of village halls are also suddenly finding out from fire inspections that they are not up to scratch. Please check the regulations specific to you if you run any property that is not a private home.

Click here for Government guidance on fire doors/fire safety

Should you have any questions regarding the above information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thanks for reading.


Caravan and camping: How to not need a locksmith

Summer finally seems to have arrived, and that means the mass migrations to caravan and camping sites up and down the country. But little mistakes can make cheaper holidays a lot more expensive.

Camper
You might read some of the advice below and think it blatantly obvious. However, getting away can be stressful and if we don’t take those few extra minutes to check certain things before we set off, our holidays and weekend breaks, may not begin well.

So, do you take your spare car key on holiday? Full marks if you do. It can be kept in the caravan or hidden in the tent, or carried by your better half. When you leave your spare 400 miles away at home what happens if you lose your car key paddling in the sea or walking in the dunes? Or you might just lock it in the boot while packing everything away leaving you locked out of your own vehicle (glove compartments are not a good place to keep spare keys). Do you really want to wait for the auto locksmith to arrive, decode your locks, produce a key that will possibly make the spare at home useless, and charge you a day’s budget for the privilege? And while you tuck that spare key somewhere safe, please check, double check and triple check you have the key to your top box. Not all locksmiths are properly trained and if you get one who drills out the lock because you are desperate to unpack all the most important stuff you placed in the top box, you might have to spend part of your holiday and budget sourcing a new top box or at least loads of gaffer tape to keep it all secure on the way home. (The other common result is frostiness from your significant other because the whole thing could be avoided.) Long before you go away, create a checklist of things to remember and no matter how much you want to beat that traffic jam on the way to your destination, always take the time to go through the checklist that will have spare car key and top box keys as something to take with you.

Hiring a motor home? Some reps may tell you that you can’t get locked out – when in fact you can, especially if you do not latch them properly. I have already been out twice this year to hired motor homes where the couple has stepped outside for a cigarette, allowed the door close, and found themselves locked out in their pyjamas. Take your key out in your pocket just in case, especially if you are new to motorhomes or it is a different vehicle to the one you are used to.

Maybe you are the proud owner of a static caravan? One that has a lift handle mechanism. When did you last have the mechanism serviced? When static caravans are near the sea, the salt can corrode all sorts of bits that you can’t see. And if water pools anywhere, rust will set in and at some point, the mechanism will seize. If you only use the caravan for personal use, then this is just an expensive inconvenience to have fixed, but if you hire out your caravan and your customers get locked out, not only have you the cost of the repair, but you might have to refund all or part of the customer’s fee by way of compensation. I see a lot of caravans in my job, and the state of the door mechanisms can be shocking. It can all be avoided with a little maintenance. If this is something you can do yourself, all well and good, but as no one ever instructs people on how to maintain these doors, you might find it cost effective to have a locksmith do the maintenance for you. For example, I charge £35 to do lock maintenance and this should be done twice a year. It is a lot easier to find £35 than to potentially have a bill for £250 plus reimbursing guests who might still go on to give you bad reviews on trip advisor. This maintenance contract extends to holiday home lets as well. If you are reading this outside of Norfolk, you might want to contact your local locksmith to see if he or she offers a similar service. When you employ a professional, you get the added bonus of someone who will adjust doors that have dropped and notice other problems you miss. Only today, I showed a customer daylight through the top of his door where it had dropped, a problem that has been making all the moving parts grind and has led to a replacement mechanism being needed, further compounded by the mechanism now being obsolete and the replacement not lining up with the existing fittings. All that could have been avoided if he had had the door maintained by someone who would have noticed the door dropping and rectified with nothing more than an Allen key and a little knowledge.

Have a great holiday and remember those spare keys!

If you require any more information regarding the above, please feel free to contact me through any of the methods on my contacts page.

Thanks for reading!


Landlords and Copied Keys

Just a very brief blog here for landlords, particularly of holiday lets, and about copying keys.

You may get two or three keys with your new lock. If you have any more cut (one for the letting agency, one for the cleaner, etc), then please ensure you personally keep an original and the tenants use an original. Far too often I am seeing locks break because poor cut copies wear the inner levers/pins and suddenly, you are left with new customers having to use back doors because they cannot get in or out via the front.

Customers who jiggle the keys to unlock the door will forget to mention it to the letting agents. Cleaners who know the ‘Knack’ won’t even think about it. Test your doors on a regular basis. If the locks are not running as smooth with the door closed as they do with the door open, then get them looked at before a customer complains and demands money back. And when you are ordering new locks, order extra keys at the same time, insisting on genuinely branded keys. It might cost a little more, but will give you peace of mind, because the extra keys bought with the lock will be covered by the guarantee. Using keys cut elsewhere will invalidate the guarantee.

If you have any questions regarding the above, please get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.

Thanks for reading.


Rental & holiday home locks

Just recently, I was called to a holiday let property at midnight because the lock had failed and the holiday makers were unable to get in. By the time I got there, the property owner had also arrived and there was an atmosphere you could have cut with a knife. It was cold, dark and wet. The holiday makers wanted to get in from a night out, the owner had been in bed and both were insinuating it was the others’ fault that the key was not working. Luckily, I was able to jiggle the key and get them all into the house quickly. But the lock was old and both keys were having problems, so I showed the landlord as discreetly as possible it was her problem and got that lock changed as fast as possible in order to get away from the tension that was growing with every minute.

A C Locksmiths Norfolk

The landlord had made several mistakes:

Firstly, she had let a lock get too old. The industry recommends that you change your locks every five years as standard. Of course, in the home, we hardly even think of changing our locks until they go wrong, but as another recent customer told me, she got her locks changed because her teenage son kept hiding keys in the garden so his friends could let themselves in when they wanted! He then forgot where he would hide them and she thought he might have lost around seven keys and even had more cut that she didn’t know about. With a holiday let home, you should be more vigilant with locks. Especially near the coast where they get weather beaten and corrode more quickly. Also, we trust our houses to strangers. How do we know none of them are making copies to return in a year or two to break in when other holiday makers are out? For security and peace of mind, it is good practice to get into the habit of changing the locks on a holiday let yearly. If you do it in late March, you won’t even notice the cost because it’s tax deductible. You have nothing to lose.

The second mistake was giving customers copy keys: locks come with two or three keys as standard. Always keep one key to have for emergency copy purposes. The others should be for the use of customers. They will be the ones using the lock the most. If you damage a lock using inferior cut keys, you have no come back on guarantees. If you have cleaners and/or management companies looking after your property, they should be using the copies because they only usually need to go in once a week on change over day. But the keys that are used the most should always be the originals. As a side note, in my experience, the worst key copiers are chain stores. Support your local cobbler/engraver as they usually do a much better job. But most of the time, even the local key cutters will only stock non-original brand key blanks. Customers don’t want to pay for the branded keys. But branded keys last longer and work better with the locks. If you have a Yale lock, you want a key that also has Yale written on it, not JMA or worse still, no marks at all. The absolute best thing you can do is to order all the keys you need when you talk to your locksmith about fitting a new lock. Remember, it’s a business expense, so you might as well get something for your money rather than lose it to the tax man.

Holiday let owners know the peace of mind that comes with having customers who come back year after year or recommend their property to others. It’s a lot better than having to refund a customer because of something that could easily have been avoided. And unfortunately, you can’t rely on the cleaners/management company to notice. The cleaners quickly get used to locks that need a knack (they need changing quickly) and the management companies don’t want to keep hassling you for jobs that require expenses, especially if they have to pay the trader and then wait for you to pay them. A good holiday let owner will have a locksmith go in and look at all their doors and windows, either at the start or end of the season. UPVC doors might need adjusting, wooden doors might have swollen or as was the case with some doors this dry summer, contracted to a point of the locks being unusable. Mechanisms should be oiled twice a year (when clocks go forward and back is a good habit to get into) and handles might have lost their spring. A door and lock might seem like a boring thing, but it is your customer’s first point of contact with your house. They won’t notice if it all runs smoothly, but if it looks shabby or is a bit stiff, that sets the tone for more things to find wrong, whether they know it or not.

For property owners of longer lease homes, you really should be changing the locks between tenants. No matter how good your outgoing tenant s may have been, you simply don’t know how many copies of keys they have had made. Scarily I’ve seen it a number of times when people buy homes for themselves, and later discover the old owner letting themselves in. Again, as this is a business expense, there is nothing to stop you installing new locks. And better you do it rather than the tenant. At least you can use the same locksmith every time who will usually use the same brands so your door is not being weakened by different sized locks needing ever bigger holes in the door.

As a tenant, you are well within your rights to demand that your new landlord provide new locks with original cut keys. Any additional keys should be discussed with the landlord because if you get bad cut copies, the lock becomes your problem.

If you have any questions regarding the above information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch using any of the methods on my contacts page.

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Which lock have I got?

Can you see your lock? Do you know what type of lock you have? Is it secure? Is it insurance standard? – All are important questions to look at your home security.

This weekend, I found myself walking through the high street of a Norfolk coastal village. One that is much quieter in winter because most of the homes are holiday lets. My wife, who is usually bored by my lock information, has obviously been taking in a lot more than she cares to admit, because she pointed to a door and told me it was not insurance rated. She was correct. This prompted me to look at all the other doors we passed and I soon discovered the majority of houses in that street would not receive insurance pay outs if they were burgled. On top of that, many would have been extremely easy for the burglar to gain access to.

So here is another visual guide to what makes you a burglar’s target, and what makes him look elsewhere.

If you have a door with one of these Horizontal sashlocks;

Sashlockthen beware! Most of these in Norfolk at least are three lever locks. If this is the only lock on your door, the burglar might just have a go because they have short bolts, no anti-drill reinforcement and are usually quite old. The five lever versions are very strong, but equally very expensive and require more holes in the door. Having a five lever deadlock fitted as primary security is the cheapest option that will satisfy the insurance people.

If I see a door with handles like the one in this image below,

Door handle
then I have no clue as to the strength of the lock fitted into the door as the mechanism is essentially hidden when shut. While your insurance is still going to demand a five lever version of this sashlock, the burglar is less likely to waste time on this unless he knows what is in your house and is specifically going after it.

 

Yale lockNow, if you have a lock like this as your only security, then get it looked at right now. This is the nightlatch (often called a “Yale” lock) and will probably take seconds to bypass. Seriously, I could walk up to one of these and be in so fast, a passerby wouldn’t even notice I didn’t use a key. There are some that have handy little additions to slow the burglar down, but mostly it is so easy, the burglar has nothing to lose when attacking this type of lock. The outside of the British Standard version of this type of lock looks like this.


Nightlatch

When I am faced with this type of nightlatch as a locksmith, I know I’m going to be earning every penny of my fee and there is probably going to be sweating and cursing going on before that door is open. The burglar is simply going somewhere else. Again, these are more expensive than their basic cousins, but they do have many features to make life harder for the intruder.

 

UPVC door

Next, we have the upvc door;










Or composite doors;

Composite door

These doors are supposed to be super secure. After all, they have all those extra hooks and bolts and rollers that engage when the handle is lifted. But the door is only as good  as the lock, and the standard locks are not very good.

                                               standard lock

Here is the standard lock,









Snapped lock cylinder

And here is what happens with cylinder snapping.

So, while these locks are still acceptable by your insurance provider, they will not deter the burglar. 





Kite marked lock
To do that, you need a cylinder like this one;
From a distance, the intruder can see the lock is not standard. If he does get close, he will see the kite mark. These locks are reinforced where the standard ones are weak, and actually designed to break closer to the front, meaning the attacker still cannot get to the bits he wants to.





Finally, if you have any version of a rim lock which will be in a similar style to this,

Rim lock









as your only door security, then you need something else as well. I find these on many farm houses and older buildings. They are very poor for stopping the burglars and easy to spot from the outside because they look like the horizontal locks but the key hole is usually lower or higher than the knob handle, so the intruder can identify them with ease.

There are many variations to all the types of lock mentioned above and this information is for guidance only. If you feel your security is not adequate, then ask your local locksmith for a security check. If he/she is any good, they will provide this service for free. Please also check elderly friends and relatives. I often visit older people who have lived with the same locks since before British Standard kite marks were even thought of. By talking to them about their security, you just might be saving them from an intruder.

Should you have any questions about the information above, please feel free to get in touch via any of the ways on my contacts page.

Thanks for reading.


Holiday Let Security

Recently, I attended a job where a family holidaying in Norfolk were demanding widow locks to be fitted to the upstairs windows. The gentleman was very apologetic for getting the property owner to call me out and said I must think he was being over cautious, not because of any security issue, but because he was worried his toddlers might open a window and fall out. I was actually more surprised that the property owner hadn’t already thought about this, especially as the windows were very low with a deep enough sill for an adult to sit or a toddler to play on.

window

The fact is, if you own a holiday cottage, you should really make sure that every possible opening has a working lock on it.

Families don’t just bring their clothes and a Frisbee on holiday any more. They bring their mobile phones and ,possibly, tablets and hand held games consoles as well. My own children seem to go into meltdown if they can’t take at least one gadget on holiday to get their fix of screen time.Some adults may bring their work laptops so that they can keep abreast of what they will be coming back to after the holiday (or more likely, catch up on who’s posting what on social media). All this means the holiday cottage owner is more obliged to make sure the security of the property where all these expensive gadgets will be kept, should be properly protected. I know from experience too many properties in Norfolk do not have the correct locks for home insurance, and this includes plenty of holiday lets.

Norfolk windmillI therefore urge holiday let owners to have regular security checks and lock services. And holiday makers, check that your cottage does have adequate locks. You are quite within your rights to have a safe and secure home to live in for the duration of your stay.

I know many owners buy these second properties as an investment for topping up the pension. But the pension will not be topped up if you are spending it on compensation claims.

If you have any questions regarding the above topic, or any of my other blogs, please get in touch via any of the methods on my contacts page.

Thanks for reading.