Seattle

[Prav]

We recently bought short sale house and apparently house beside garage doors has 4 other doors around the property to get access inside. Now seller agent has given us one key to the main door and no keys for other doors as well as no garage door openers. I have requested seller agent who is Windermere agent personally as well as through my agent multiple times to give us the keys as I want to rekey all the locks. Replacing all the locks is an expensive option but seller agent has not made any effort to give us the keys. I don’t want to spend hundreds of $s to replace all garage door openers as well as 8 locks (2 locks on each door)

Isn’t seller supposed to provide keys to all locks? Or is it assumed that buyer will pay for all the locks expenses (Apparently we didn’t have keys clause in our contract)

To me it seems like malpractice/irresponsible attitude of the seller agent and I am thinking of complaining against it but not sure if it is standard practice

Thanks!

[paydirt68]

Prav,

Congratulations on your new house.  

Re-keying the house should be only one of many on your list of costs associated with this purchase.  I'd imagine it is but a fraction of what you allocated and deducted from the purchase price. Only a very small amount will be tied to re-keying.  If these are the only hundreds you have to spend that you didn't account for then you are doing very good on the transaction.

[Ready-Set-List]

Call Mr. Re-Key and get a quote.  Any time you buy a home you should have it immediately re-keyed.  You never know who the seller has given keys to over the years and you don't want to wake up and find that the seller's Uncle Steve didn't get the memo that the house had been sold and is passed out on your guest bed... or worse.  

I think this is particularly true when you buy a distressed home.  I wouldn't be surprised if you have other little hiccups.  The good news is that I'm sure you got a fantastic deal on the house!

[Tilly]

When buying any house I have seen that it is suggested by real estate experts to rekey any house.  You never know if the previous owner still has a copy of the house key.  I would say the majority of seller are honest and hand over all keys, but you never know and for peace of mind its worth to rekey the house.  

[OrendaQuest]

    I change the locks and give a new key to the owner when I rent a new place. I will absolutely get all new locks when I finally find the right house to purchase and settle into to make my home. My safety, my pets and the things that I have bought over the years are important to me and I want to keep everything as safe as possible. New locks are a small price to pay for that.

[QAResident]

You don't need all the keys in order to rekey the locks.  You don't need to buy new locks.  With every house we've purchased, first thing we do is rekey, the key guy makes you brand new nice keys.  You can get nice master keys and cheaper duplicates or do all of them nicely.  Maybe $100-150 depending on number of locks and keys needed.  Garage door is harder, obviously.  Not much you can do to get the openers back that isn't more time and money than its worth, but a garage door company can come "rekey" that too - set new codes so if the code was programmed into the owners car, they can't access the door and they can sell you a new opener.  Good luck.  (Buying a short sale, I wouldn't count on continued cooperation from the seller.)