Changing the Locks When You Move into a New Home

When you complete on a property purchase, the estate agent hands over a set of keys. What they cannot hand over is a full account of every key that has ever been cut from the original lock. During a typical sale, a property may have been viewed by dozens of people, managed by a letting agent for several years, or sat empty while a probate estate was settled. In each of those scenarios, keys move around. Former tenants, maintenance contractors, and previous owners' family members may all hold copies that were simply never collected. Even well-meaning people forget to hand keys back. Changing the locks — or in the case of a uPVC or composite door, replacing the euro cylinder — eliminates every one of those unknowns in one visit.

There is also an insurance angle worth knowing. Many home contents and buildings insurers ask that your front door has a five-lever mortice deadlock that meets British Standard BS3621. If your policy has that requirement and your existing lock does not meet it, a claim could be complicated. Sorting it on moving day means you are properly covered from the moment your belongings arrive, rather than finding out the hard way months later.

The work varies depending on what type of door you have, but a professional locksmith can typically assess, recommend, and complete the job in a single visit — often in well under an hour once they have seen the door. For a standard timber front door in a Fulham Victorian or Edwardian terrace, that usually means two things: replacing the nightlatch (the Yale-style lock operated by the latch and a small key) and upgrading or confirming the five-lever mortice deadlock in the middle of the door. If the mortice deadlock is already a solid, BS3621-compliant lock in good condition, the cylinder of the nightlatch may be the only component that needs to change. Your locksmith will tell you honestly which is the case.

For uPVC and composite doors — common on purpose-built flats, newer builds, and many back doors across SW6 — the mechanism is different. These doors typically use a multipoint locking system operated by lifting the handle and turning the key, with a euro cylinder as the locking core. A door lock replacement London-wide for this type of door usually means swapping the euro cylinder for a new, higher-security one. This is where the anti-snap specification matters enormously. Euro cylinders are vulnerable to a technique called cylinder snapping, where a burglar breaks the outer section of the cylinder to gain access in seconds. An anti-snap cylinder — ideally a TS007 3-star rated one or a combination of a 1-star cylinder and a 2-star handle — resists this attack. If your uPVC door currently has a standard cylinder, upgrading it at the same time as your lock change is straightforward and strongly advisable. If you are unsure what you have, give us a call on 020 7871 7823 and we can talk it through before you even book.

Sometimes what looks like a simple cylinder change turns into a slightly larger job, and it is worth knowing this upfront. On older uPVC doors — particularly those installed in the 1990s or early 2000s — the multipoint mechanism itself may have worn or dropped out of alignment over time. You may have noticed the door is stiff to lock, the handle needs lifting at a precise angle, or the key turns but the bolts do not fully engage. This is not simply a cylinder problem. The gearbox within the multipoint mechanism may need replacing, or the door may need adjustment in its frame before a new cylinder will work correctly.

A good locksmith will identify this during their assessment rather than fitting a new cylinder into a faulty mechanism and leaving. If your door has dropped on its hinges — which is common on uPVC doors after years of use — the fix may also involve hinge adjustment or replacement. The result is a door that locks as it should, closes cleanly, and whose cylinder is properly supported. UPVC door lock repair London jobs like this are more involved, but they are routine work for an experienced locksmith, and you will know exactly what is needed and what it will cost before any work begins. The final quote depends on factors including the lock type, the parts required, and whether additional mechanism work is needed — we confirm everything upfront so there are no surprises.

Timber doors on older Fulham properties — the kind you find throughout the streets between Fulham Broadway and the river, or up towards Barons Court — tend to have a combination of a rim nightlatch and a mortice lock. The nightlatch is the spring-loaded latch near the top of the door that closes automatically when the door swings shut. The mortice deadlock sits lower down and is a separate, manually operated bolt. Together, used properly, they provide solid security. Used poorly — for example, if residents rely only on the nightlatch and never use the deadlock — the door is far more vulnerable than it should be.

When a locksmith carries out a lock change London on a timber door, they will check the condition of both locks, the quality of the keep plates (the metal plates on the frame that the bolts throw into), and whether the door frame itself is solid. A high-quality lock fitted into a weak frame or with a flimsy keep plate is only as strong as its weakest point. Reinforced keep plates and longer fixing screws are inexpensive additions that make a meaningful difference. If you are in a flat with a communal entrance, bear in mind that your flat's own front door needs to be treated as your primary security perimeter — the communal door is shared with other residents and you have less control over it. We cover the full SW6 postcode district and surrounding areas, so wherever you are in Fulham, we can be with you promptly.

Moving day is chaotic, and lockouts happen — sometimes before you have even had a chance to get a copy of the new key cut, let alone arrange a lock change. If you find yourself in that situation and are wondering what to do when you are locked out of your house, the first sensible steps are to check whether any other door into the property is accessible (a back door through the garden, for instance), and to see whether a family member or the estate agent still holds a key from the sale. If neither option works, calling a professional locksmith is the right next step. A skilled locksmith can open a locked door without causing damage in the vast majority of cases — far better than attempting anything yourself, which risks damaging the door or lock and can leave you with a larger bill and a compromised frame. Can a locksmith get into a deadlock or a mortice lock without damage? In most cases, yes — a trained locksmith has the tools and knowledge to open locks non-destructively, though the method depends on the lock type and its condition. We send a locksmith straight away and are usually with you in about 30 minutes. Once you are back inside, we can carry out a lock change on the same visit so the situation is fully resolved. Call 020 7871 7823 at any time — we answer 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

The simplest approach is to book a locksmith for the morning of your moving day, before the removal van arrives. That way, you start the day with control of your locks, and you do not have to think about it again. Bring the existing keys with you to completion so you can hand them to the locksmith on arrival. Let your locksmith know in advance what type of doors you have — timber, uPVC, composite — and roughly how many entry points need attention. Most Fulham homes have a main front door and at least one rear door; flats in a block may have only the flat's own entrance to deal with. If you do need to change the cylinder or swap a lock, do it before you unpack rather than adding it to the ever-growing list of things you will get round to. Emergency locksmith London call-outs happen far more often to new owners who meant to sort the locks but ran out of time. Prevention genuinely is simpler. As a 24 hour locksmith London, we are available whenever moving day unfolds — early mornings, evenings, weekends, and bank holidays included. For a no-pressure conversation about what your new home needs, call us on 020 7871 7823.