Buying A Repossession - Changing The Locks And Resetting The Alarm

The problem with buying a repossession is that generally the tenants will know they are due for eviction.  You can tell that the general maintenance in the house we bought had been allowed to slip, even though it is only seven years old.  When buying a repossession, or any house for that matter, it is worthwhile remembering you don't know who has a copy of they keys. Add to the fact that a repossession was probably involuntary and the ex tenants may not be happy about it. It may be a pessimistic view of people, but they are your possessions.
 If the house has an alarm on it, it is worth getting in touch with the company that either maintains it (usually these will incur a monthly fee for supervision from a data center) or the company that installed it. When buying a repossession the company that has repossessed will not have the general information you would get in a normal purchase. When it comes to an alarm, you will not have any codes. So, when you put your electric on, it is likely that the alarm will start going off, you will have no way of shutting it down.  The company that installed our alarm system is charging us £45.00 for a maintenance check and to reset the codes. As it will probably need a new battery since it has been off power for so long, a new battery is going to cost us £12.00.  Considering the cost of the house we thought this a sound investment.

As for changing the locks we thought the cost would be extortionate. However, it wasn't too bad. For the front door, back door, garage (up and over) door and garage side door, with new locks and 3 sets of keys we have been quoted under £100! As with all things of this nature we rang around quite a few different companies, going through what was needed and this was the best quote.

When buying a repossession security is definitely something that should be at the top of the list. We certainly put it at the top of ours.