New Home Security First Day | What to Change, In What Order

You've just collected the keys. The removal van is either blocking the street outside or running forty minutes late. You're excited, you're knackered, and the last thing on your mind is sitting down to think about who else might have a copy of those keys.

That's exactly the problem.

The hour after you take possession is the highest-risk window your new home will ever have. You don't know the history. The previous owners might have been meticulous. They might have had a cleaner, a dog walker, a teenage kid who lost a set in 2021, an ex-partner who never handed theirs back. The estate agent's office probably had a key on a hook. The neighbour who fed the cat might still have one in a kitchen drawer in Wavertree and think nothing of it.

This guide covers what to do on day one, in order, before the kettle's unpacked. Not hypothetically. Practically, with real lock names, real costs, and the bits everyone forgets.

Before You Touch Anything Else: The Key Audit

Count what you've been given. Write it down. Estate agents in Liverpool typically hand over two sets. If the previous owner handed keys directly, ask specifically: how many sets exist, who has them, are there any spare keys cut for neighbours or tradespeople?

You will not get a complete answer. People forget. They don't think a key to the back gate matters. Accept that the audit is a starting point, not a guarantee, and plan accordingly.

If you can get the previous owner on the phone in the first hour, ask about:

• Whether there's a key safe on the wall (check around the front porch and back door frame, they're often left behind)
• The alarm code, if there is one
• Whether any window handles or locks have separate keys
• The garage, if there is one, specifically whether the side door has its own lock

Anything you can't verify gets treated as compromised.

Priority One: The Front and Back Door Cylinders

Change these today. Not this week. Today, or as near to it as humanly possible.

Most front doors in Liverpool's terraced housing stock, whether you're in Anfield, Toxteth, Kensington or a mid-century semi in Allerton, will have a euro cylinder in a uPVC or composite door. Some older properties in Aigburth or Woolton will still have a mortice lock, either a five-lever BS3621 or something older and weaker.

What you're actually replacing

A standard euro cylinder is the oval-shaped barrel that takes your key. They pull out with one screw and a turn of the key. A locksmith can swap one in under ten minutes. You can do it yourself if you know the size (measure from the centre of the fixing screw to each end, written as, say, 40/50mm).

The problem is that most builder-grade cylinders fitted in new builds or left in rented properties are cheap, ungraded, and snap-friendly. Cylinder snapping is still the dominant forced-entry method across Merseyside, as the local Neighbourhood Watch stats have shown for years. The technique takes about twenty seconds and requires a cheap tool anyone can buy.

What to fit instead: A TS007 3-star rated cylinder. Brands worth spending money on include Ultion, Avocet ABS, and Mul-T-Lock. Ultion's 3-star retails around £50 to £70 and comes with a £2,000 guarantee against picking, bumping and snapping. Avocet ABS is similarly priced and has a strong record in independent testing. For a standard 35/35mm or 40/40mm cylinder, a locksmith-supplied-and-fitted job in the Liverpool area will run you roughly £80 to £120 per door, including parts.

If your front door has a five-lever mortice (the type where the key turns the full 360 degrees), check for a BS3621 kite mark stamped on the lock case inside the door edge. If it's there, the lock body is probably fine. Change the cylinder or get a replacement key cut, but check with a locksmith whether the mortice itself needs replacing before spending money on it.

Back door gets the same treatment. People chronically under-prioritise the back, especially on terraced properties in Everton or Walton where the back entry is shared. The back door is statistically more vulnerable, because it's less overlooked.

Priority Two: The Side Gate and Back Entry Gate

This is the one people skip. Completely.

A lot of Liverpool terraces, particularly in L4, L6, and L7, have a back entry shared between two rows of houses. The gate at the end of the entry, and the side gate into your own yard, are points of access that most new owners don't even look at on day one.

Common problems:

• Gate bolts that are so worn they don't engage properly
• A padlock that came with the property, with unknown key history
• No lock at all, just a bolt that can be reached over the top
• A combination padlock where the previous owner set the code

If there's a padlock on a shared or side gate, replace it. A decent closed-shackle padlock like an ERA, Squire or Mul-T-Lock padlock with a BS EN 12320 Grade 4 rating costs £25 to £50 and takes five minutes to swap. Closed-shackle matters because the shackle isn't exposed, so bolt cutters can't get a proper angle on it.

While you're out there, check whether the gate itself can be lifted off its hinges. Old wooden gates in Bootle or Litherland properties sometimes have the hinge pins on the outside. If that's the case, the padlock is almost irrelevant. A locksmith or a decent handyman can fix the hinges; it's worth doing.

Priority Three: Window Locks

Walk the whole house and check every opening window. This is the step people do last, or never, because it feels less urgent. It isn't.

For uPVC windows, look for:

• Whether the handle locks (turn the handle 90 degrees to the horizontal position, can it be pushed back without a key?)
• Whether the shoot-bolts are engaging when you close the window fully
• Whether there's a key for the handle lock, and whether you have it

uPVC windows from brands like Mila, Winkhaus, Maco, and GU have multipoint locking mechanisms built into the frame. They're reasonably secure when properly maintained, but they can drop out of alignment, meaning the lock points don't engage even when the handle is turned. Test each one: close the window, lock the handle, then try to push the window open with both hands. It should be completely solid. If there's any give, the mechanism needs adjusting or the hinges need packing. A locksmith can diagnose this in a minute; a window fitter can fix it cheaply.

For sash windows, which you'll find in a lot of the older stock across L8 and L15, check whether there are sash stops or sash locks fitted. Many older properties have nothing except the original frame catches, which a thin blade can defeat in seconds. Sash stops screw into the frame and prevent the bottom sash from being raised more than a few centimetres, enough for ventilation but not for a person. They're about £5 to £10 each and dead easy to fit yourself.

Ground floor windows and any window accessible from a flat roof, a garage roof, or a side return need physical locks as a minimum. Don't assume the height makes something inaccessible.

Priority Four: The Garage

Detached garages in Allerton, Woolton or Mossley Hill properties, and integral garages in newer builds across Speke, Huyton, and Maghull, are a security weak point that barely gets discussed.

Three things to check:

The main up-and-over or roller door. If it's a manual up-and-over door, find the T-handle on the outside. These are often left with the factory default lock or no lock at all. A locksmith-fitted T-handle cylinder replacement runs around £40 to £60. If it's an electric roller or sectional door, make sure you have the remote codes and change them. Most modern garage door motors have a button on the back of the unit to reset the remotes, wipe the old codes and pair your own.

The side door. This is the one everyone forgets. The side door of a garage often connects directly to the house, or at least gives access to tools, bikes, and the fusebox. These doors are frequently fitted with the weakest possible lock, sometimes a single-point euro cylinder that's been in place for fifteen years. Treat it the same as a back door: TS007 3-star cylinder, and if it connects internally to the house, it should ideally meet the same standard as an external door.

Whether the garage is an entry point to the house. If there's a door from the garage into the utility room or kitchen, that internal door is now an external door for security purposes. It needs a proper five-lever mortice or a multipoint lock. Insurers increasingly take this view too.

Priority Five: The Alarm (If There Is One)

A lot of properties in Liverpool have an alarm that was installed by the previous owner, or in some cases, a social housing tenant who had it fitted under a scheme. If there's a box on the wall and a panel inside, you need to:

• Change the master code immediately. The default factory codes (1234, 0000, the previous owner's birth year) need to go.
• Find out whether the system is monitored, and if so, by which company. Call them, tell them you're the new owner, and either take over the contract or cancel it.
• Test every zone. Walk the house with the alarm armed and deliberately trigger each PIR detector and door contact. If a zone doesn't trigger, either the detector is dead or it was never connected properly.

If there's no alarm and you're thinking about one, I'd point you at a separate piece on alarm versus lock spend, but briefly: the locks come first, always. An alarm tells you someone is in the house. A good lock stops them getting in.

What About Smart Locks?

You might have bought a property with a smart lock already fitted, a Yale Conexis, a Ultion Nuki, or one of the budget options. A few honest points:

Change the access codes and delete all previous user accounts before you do anything else. Most smart locks have a companion app; do a factory reset and set it up as new. Previous owners, their family, and any tradespeople they gave access to will still have digital access until you wipe it.

If the smart lock is fitted to a door that doesn't have a physical cylinder as backup, check what the fail state is. Battery dies, you need to get in. Most decent smart locks have an external battery contact or a physical key override. Know which yours is.

A smart lock is not a substitute for a quality cylinder. Many of the budget smart locks are fitted over cheap cylinders. The smart functionality is irrelevant if the cylinder itself can be snapped in seconds. If you're keeping a smart lock in place, check what's underneath it.

The Bits That Can Wait (But Not Long)

Some things don't need doing in the first hour but shouldn't drift past the first week:

• External lighting. A PIR light over the front door and back door costs £20 to £40 and removes the cover of darkness for anyone checking whether your locks or windows are worth targeting.
• Letterbox cage or restrictor. In a terrace on a busy street in Kensington or Everton, a letterbox is a hand-sized hole in your front door. A cage behind it stops anyone fishing for keys or pushing a camera through. They're under £15 and clip into place.
• Confirming your insurance. Check your new home contents and buildings policy. Many standard policies require BS3621 five-lever mortice locks or TS007 3-star cylinders on final exit doors. If you're fitting less than that, you may be uninsured for a break-in. Worth ten minutes of reading.

The Honest Reality

You won't do all of this on day one. The van's blocking the road, someone needs feeding, and the boiler might already be making an interesting noise. That's fine. But at minimum, get the front and back door cylinders changed before you sleep there the first night. Everything else can follow in the days after, but those two points are non-negotiable.

The cost of changing both cylinders to TS007 3-star standard is around £160 to £220 for parts and labour. The average burglary in Merseyside costs the victim upward of £3,000 once you factor in damaged doors and frames, stolen items not fully covered by insurance, and the weeks of disruption. The maths aren't complicated.

If you've just picked up keys in Liverpool and want someone to run through the property quickly, Liverpool Locksmith Services covers the city and the L postcodes, arrival under thirty minutes where possible, and honest pricing quoted on the call. No pressure, no upsell. Just a locksmith who'd rather you were sorted than sorry.