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.

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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