Moving Home
A move is the one week when your keys are everywhere at once
Think about how many hands a set of keys passes through around a move. The vendor and their family. An agent who held a set for viewings and may have cut a spare when one went walkabout. A cleaner booked for the end of the chain. Removals crews propping the front door open for four hours. A builder finishing a kitchen the week you arrive. None of those people are a threat, and that is not the point — the point is that by the time you sit down on the first evening, nobody alive can tell you how many working keys to your new home exist.
Which is why we treat moving as a sequence rather than a single job. There is what you sort before the van arrives, what happens on the day itself, what needs doing in the first fortnight, and what you owe the property you are leaving behind. Most people think only about the front door, get to it three months later, and never look at the side gate, the garage, the shed or the window locks that came with the house and were last thought about by somebody else entirely.
The good news is that this is the cheapest and calmest security work you will ever book. Nothing has gone wrong, nobody is standing outside in the rain, and you can choose a time that suits you. A move is also the one moment when it costs almost nothing extra to get every external door onto a single key, because the labour is being paid for anyway and every lock is being touched in the same visit.
How We Work Around a Move
Moving is the one security job you get to plan rather than react to. Booked in advance it is an hour of a quiet weekday. Left until something goes wrong, it becomes a different kind of call entirely.
Getting In on Moving Day
Completion days rarely run to plan. Keys are released late, an agent closes at five, a set is handed over with one key for a door that needs two, or the vendor genuinely cannot find the back door key at all. If you are standing outside your own new house with a van full of furniture, that is an opening job and we treat it as urgent. We can also attend by arrangement on the day itself, so the locks are changed while the boxes are still coming in rather than a fortnight later.
Shut Out on the DayEverything Else That Has a Lock
The front door gets the attention and the rest gets forgotten. A new house typically comes with a back door, a side gate, a garage, a shed, an outhouse and anywhere from six to fifteen window locks, most with keys that were last accounted for by a previous owner. Windows and outbuildings are how a great many break-ins actually start, and they are usually the cheapest things on the list to sort. We walk the property with you and write down what is there before quoting anything.
One Key for the Whole HouseThe Home You Are Leaving
The other half of a move gets almost no thought. Keys have to be accounted for and handed over, and if you are a tenant, a set that cannot be returned usually comes out of the deposit at whatever the agent decides a lock change costs. If you changed a lock during your tenancy, the original often has to go back on. We can attend the outgoing property the same week and give you an invoice that satisfies an agent, which is generally cheaper than letting them arrange it.
Keys You Cannot ReturnWhy We Look at the Whole Property
- We can attend on completion day — booked around your key release, so the locks are changed while the van is still being unloaded.
- The whole property, not just the front door — back doors, gates, garages, sheds and window locks are checked and listed before anything is quoted.
- Every external door on one key if you want it — a move is the cheapest moment to do it, because the labour is being paid for once rather than twice.
- 180-day warranty on locks, lifetime on keys — itemised on an invoice, which is exactly what an agent or an insurer will ask you for later.
Our Process - What Happens When You Call
- Tell us your completion or tenancy date. We work backwards from it. Knowing the date a week or two ahead is usually the difference between a slot that suits you and whatever is left.
- Send photographs of the doors you know about. The face and edge of each external door is enough to price the work in advance, before anybody has moved a single box.
- We walk the property on the day. Including the parts nobody photographs — the side gate, the garage, the shed and the windows — and you get one price for the lot.
- Fitted, keys handed over, old ones proved dead. Every new key is tested in its door, the previous keys are tried in front of you, and the invoice names what went where.
Why Choose N1 Locksmiths?
You speak to the person doing the job
Explain the move once, to the engineer who is coming, and the right cylinders and window keys are on the van before it leaves Holloway Road.
Priced on the call, before we travel
A front door on its own, three external doors, or a whole house including windows are different jobs, and you hear which is which up front.
Booked around your completion
Same-day attendance on moving day where the diary allows, because a fortnight later is when it stops getting done at all.
180-day warranty on locks, lifetime on keys
Every lock fitted and every key cut is guaranteed, with the products named on the invoice for your records.
Nothing sold that the house does not need
Where the locks you have inherited are decent, we will say so and only change what genuinely needs changing.
15–30 minutes across N and NW
Worked from Holloway Road, so if a key handover falls apart at six in the evening, you are not waiting until tomorrow.
Book it for the day you get the keys
The version of this job that goes well is booked a week or two ahead, attended on completion day or the morning after, and finished before the kettle has been unpacked. The version that goes badly is remembered halfway through the following spring. Tell us your completion or tenancy date, roughly how many external doors the property has and whether there is a garage, shed or side gate, and you will have a price for the whole thing in one reply — with an engineer reaching you within 15–30 minutes across the N and NW postcodes if the day goes sideways.
Message on WhatsAppCALL 020 7129 7496Explore Our Locksmith Services
A move touches most of what a locksmith does, usually in one visit. These are the services people book alongside it — inherited locks changed or rekeyed, a tired mechanism sorted before it becomes your problem, and every external door brought onto a single key while the work is being done anyway.
Areas We Cover Across London
We work around moves across N1 to N22 and NW1 to NW11 from 37 Holloway Road in N7, and the shape of the job follows the kind of property being moved into. Flat purchases and new tenancies around Angel, Islington, Barnsbury and Holloway are usually a single entrance door plus a communal one that belongs to the freeholder, so the work is quick and the advice is mostly about what you can and cannot change. Family houses towards Hampstead, Finchley, Barnet and Golders Green are the longer visits — front, back and side doors, a garage, a shed and a full set of window locks, all inherited from somebody else and all worth listing properly on the day rather than discovering one at a time over the following year.
FAQs – Moving Home
When is the best time to book a locksmith around a move?
As soon as you have a firm completion or tenancy date, and ideally for the day itself or the one after. Booking early gets you a slot that fits around the removals rather than whatever is left, and it means the job actually happens. The single commonest thing we hear is that somebody meant to sort it in the first week and is calling us seven months later.
Can you come out on completion day itself?
Yes, and it is the tidiest way to do it. We work around the key release, so the locks are changed while boxes are still coming through the door and you finish the day with the only working keys. If the handover slips, as it often does, tell us and we will move the slot rather than leaving you paying for a visit that could not happen.
The agent could not give me keys and I am locked out with a removal van outside. Can you help?
That is an emergency opening and we prioritise it, because you have a crew on the clock and nowhere to put a house full of furniture. We open non-destructively wherever the lock allows, get you inside, and then talk about changing the locks properly once the van is unloaded rather than making that decision standing in the street.
Who pays for a lock change when a tenant moves in, me or the landlord?
There is no single rule and it comes down to the tenancy agreement and what has been agreed. Landlords will often cover it between tenancies as a matter of course, especially where keys were not all returned. Where a tenant simply wants their own peace of mind mid-tenancy, it is usually their cost, and it should be discussed with the landlord first rather than afterwards.
I am moving out of a rented flat and cannot find one of the keys. What happens?
Tell the agent early rather than hoping it is not noticed. Most agreements allow them to arrange a lock change and take it from the deposit, at a price you have no say over. Arranging it yourself in the last week of the tenancy is normally cheaper, and we can provide an itemised invoice naming the lock and the date for you to hand over.
What about window locks, the garage and the shed?
They come with the house and nobody knows where their keys have been. Window locks in particular are worth checking on the ground floor and on anything reachable from a flat roof or a garden wall, since those are common entry points. Garages and sheds usually hold tools that would be useful to somebody trying to get into the house itself, which is the part people overlook.
Is a brand-new build any different?
In principle it should be cleaner, but a new build has been open to trades for months and site keys are not tracked the way people assume. Many developers hand over on a builder's key system that is deliberately common across a site. It is worth asking the developer directly what the handover arrangement is, and if the answer is vague, treat it as you would any other move.
Should I change the locks or just have them rekeyed?
Rekeying keeps the existing lock and changes the combination so old keys stop working, and it is a sensible economy where the locks you have inherited are modern and in good condition. Where they are tired, mismatched or basic, a move is the natural moment to replace rather than preserve them, because you are only paying for the visit once.
Can you do the whole house in one visit?
Usually yes, and that is how most moving jobs are booked. Two or three external doors, the window locks and any outbuildings are comfortably a morning's work. Send what photographs you can beforehand and we will bring enough stock to finish in one go rather than leaving you with a second appointment in a week you have no spare time in.
What should I do with the keys I was given by the vendor or agent?
Keep them until the work is done, then hold onto them rather than binning them straight away — they occasionally turn out to belong to a meter cupboard, a communal bin store or a garage you have not identified yet. Once every lock they might fit has been changed or rekeyed, they are just metal and can go.
How is a moving-home lock change priced?
By how many locks are involved and what goes back in, quoted before we travel. A single front door is a small job; a house with three external doors, a garage and twelve window locks is priced as one visit rather than lock by lock, which works out considerably better than booking them separately over several months.