New home - change locks?

[Lollipop2025]

Hello,

I've seen the general advice to change locks on a new home but how many of you actually did this?
We move next week and I don't remember my parents ever doing this so wondered if its actually a thing people did in the real world?
First time buyer as you couldn't already tell 😂

No one I know has ever done this.

Locks changed on the day I moved in on every occasion.

No one I know hasn't!

I always change the locks, wouldn’t bother to pay a locksmith it is a really simple thing to do. Just unscrew one and screw the new one in.

I always change the locks. It's useful to keep the old one so that if you have builders in change it back till the work is finished.

My first house, i thought it may be haunted, just knew something different, wondered if neighbours been in. Week later got a nice letter from the people I bought it from with the key enclosed, they had used it to pick up a couple of oddments int he kitchen.

Yes, locks changed straight away in both houses.

When we lived in London, our rented flat was ‘broken’ into and burgled - it was obviously a previous tenant or someone with keys. They had managed to come through the main door downstairs and our door which has a dead lock on too. No sign of forced entry. When I rang the LL up to tell him he needs to change the locks asap, he admitted he hadn’t changed them ‘in years’. Nice!

When we bought our first home a couple of years ago, one of the first things we did was change the locks.

I’ve moved eleven times and never done this.

Yes! We had been in our previous house a week when an estate agent and viewers walked in! Shock all round. It wasn't the same EA as we'd bought through, just one that still had the house on its books. Long time ago, hopefully couldn't happen now but been in our new house a year and changing the locks was the first thing we did.

I though I was going crazy because I was sure some letters which I planned to mark aa not at this address were missing. Until I was once at home and heard someone to come in and then quickly leave. Again. Letters by the door went missing. Some people... !

Yes I absolutely would but then every property we’ve bought has been a rental at some stage we’ve just been in that bracket apparently

Yes I’ve always changed the locks when moving in. You never know who might still have a key, Plus all houses I’ve bought have had crappy standard low security locks. So I upgrade to 3 star high security anti snap locks while I’m at it.

Changing a lock barrel is ridiculously easy, especially the euro cylinders used on UPVC and composite doors. No need to call a locksmith. Takes less than 2 minutes and all you need is a screwdriver. Plenty
of videos on YouTube will show you how if you don’t know.

Of course, it's something I've done for every house I've owned and everyone I know does it. It's a tiny cost in comparison to the cost of.buying a house and it makes no sense to put your family and belongings at risk.

I always change the locks, both when I move and when I get new tenants in my rental property. You just never know how many people have keys and how careless they are.

For our house there's me, DH, MIL, 4 adult kids, 1 teen kid, 2 of DD's regular carers, BIL and SIL all have keys. I'm happy with that many people I know having keys - I don't want that many people the previous owners know having keys!

I started doing it with my rental property years ago when a tenant lost the keys and told me he hoped someone would post them through the door as the address was on his keyring 🤦🏻‍♀️

Never done it.
Paranoid overthinking imo unless you really don't trust the sellers/previous occupants

5 years after moving in we found a spare set of keys hidden in the front garden so glad we had changed the locks

No but all the doors and windows needed changing anyway so that was done not long after we moved in

Ridiculous, of course not.

I am buying an ex rental - so will be changing the locks. No idea who in th past has had keys. First task to do when I move in!

First thing we’ve done when moving. Our current home was an ex rental and we only got 1 key for it from the EA 🥴 found a back door key lobbed in a random drawer. No telling how many keys 🔑 were in existence! The front door was also a thumb lock on the inside 🤯

I've never done this. And I've never known anyone to do it IRL.

First house I lived in had a brand new doors on it. When I moved to my next home we had new windows and the fitted straight away replacing the old wooden ones. This home we also put new windows and doors in as they were blown.

No, never. Has never crossed my mind.

I waited until after I’d had work done to the house before I changed the locks. It meant I wasn’t bothered about handing keys out to plumber etc.

We’ve always changed front and back door locks as soon as we’ve moved.