Did you change locks when you moved into a new home?

[littlecontis]

If you did - did you just get the Yale ones from B&Q? Thanks.

I'm wondering this too. Just moved, but its been derelict and nothing of value in there.

Yes, but while our house was derelict it had been previously rented to a couple dozen lads over a few years. And on day 2 of living in it the postman pushed something through the letterbox and landed on top of me in the hall...

We got Ingersoll on the front door, Yales on the others (hard to get round the back).

Yes always done that but got a locksmith (usually Yale locks though).

I changed the barrels on the locks myself. It's not difficult to do if standard take locks

Yes, a locksmith did ours for all external doors. I think it is recommended to - you have no idea who might have keys! Ours was previously tenanted and we had the locks changes on completion.

Yes of course.

By "Yale" do you mean a traditional nightlatch? It is a rubbish device that will prevent the door blowing open in the wind but will not inconvenience a house breaker.

You should have a British Standard deadlock.

I’ve never changed the locks when I’ve bought a house.

Straight away. We used a locksmith.

Yes. All ours have always been Euro cylinders in relatively modern doors, so super easy to do yourself. Open door, measure distance between the screw that holds the lock in, & each end of the lock, (inside/outside) in order to get measurements, & buy on eBay.

We have high security Avocet ABS cylinders with matching keys - £70 or so for both locks & 6 keys IIRC.

Never occurred to me

Only on our current house because the lock was broken.

Never! And my husband is an estate agent. Unless there are concerns that someone else may still have a key, why would you need to?

Yup we got a locksmith to sort them out the day after we moved in.

A week later I came home early from work and saw the previous owner trying to use their keys to get in!! I was still walking up the road at this point and they'd left before I got there - don't know if they saw me or not.

yep, always change all the cylinders - it's super easy.

Because we had so many, and there's only been one previous owner since this place was built, and because we live in the middle of nowhere, I just got locks off Amazon, rather than the 50 quid genuine Yale barrels.

My dad has a ziplock bag of barrels from his kids moving houses which were it not covid, I'd have had a rummage through for barrels that fit, and put my now redundant ones into the stash - after all, no reason the barrels have to be new, just different from the old ones.

I've moved house several times but have never changed the locks. It never occurred to me!

No, I didn't.

Yep, we changed the barrels. Couldn't get any the day we moved in so just swapped the front and back around (no access to back garden even if someone did work it out) and got new ones from b&q a few days later and replaced them both. 5 minute job for peace of mind.

@PracticalTacticalBrilliance

Yup we got a locksmith to sort them out the day after we moved in.

A week later I came home early from work and saw the previous owner trying to use their keys to get in!! I was still walking up the road at this point and they'd left before I got there - don't know if they saw me or not.

What the hell!! Why would they try to get into a house that doesn't belong to them anymore?

Thank you everyone for your responses, I will look into changing our door locks.

always. you never know who has got keys and how many copies are around.

last time we had to get a locksmith to get a new lock as whoever last closed that door closed it with the night latch in place...

Yep. Locksmith the day of completion did all locks with outside access.

I've also experienced previous owner trying to get in front door using keys, I saw her as I was walking up the road towards the house, bizarre.. we had moved in a week earlier

No, mind you after a massive postal fail for the woman who I bought the house from, we have since become friends.

Although I did have a feeling that changing the locks was not necessary as she was a complete honey over the sale.

No but I did when the ex moved out.

Its piss easy to do and takes about 5 minutes.

We've always changed them ourselves. People often forget who they've given keys to.....friends, extended family, etc,.

I just had thr ingersoll barrel changed. Cheaper than a new lock and does exactly the same job.