The weeks after handover
New build locksmith Pilar de la Horadada, for the weeks after handover
A new home arrives with cylinders that went through a building site, a front door that has not yet lived through a summer, and a storeroom and garage with locks of their own. One visit soon after handover makes all of them yours.
Open 24 hours · 7 days
- Builder’s cylinders replaced
- Doors adjusted, not forced
- Price agreed before any work
Why change the locks of a home nobody has lived in? Because people have. During a build, doors are hung early and opened by many trades, keys pass from hand to hand, and some sites fit temporary cylinders for the works. Nobody can tell you how many keys went round. A new cylinder settles it.
Building here
A municipality still being built
Between January and September 2021, Pilar de la Horadada started 265 new homes, more than any other municipality in the Vega Baja: Torrevieja started 230 and Orihuela 222, according to Alicante’s professional college of building surveyors (aparejadores). New developments are still being sold in Mil Palmeras and beside the Lo Romero golf course, and the estates either side of the old tower at La Torre are among the newer parts of the coast.
So handovers are a regular part of life here, and so are the questions that follow them. If you are still waiting for yours, two guides help first: what the builder’s specification says about your door and what to test on handover day.
One visit
What gets looked at in a new home
| Door | What usually needs doing | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| Front door | Cylinder replaced; latch and bolts checked against the frame | Yours to decide. A defect in the door itself goes to the builder first. |
| Terrace slider | Hook lock and rollers checked; alignment | Sliders have their own page. |
| Storeroom (trastero) | Lock replaced or adjusted; door checked for swelling | Yours. More on storeroom locks. |
| Garage door to your space | Cylinder or lock replaced | Yours, if it serves only your space. |
| Community gate and street door | Nothing, unless the community asks | The community, through its administrator. |
| Safe in the wardrobe | Code reset; fixed to the floor or wall | Yours. See safes. |
The first summer
Doors that move once the house has settled
A door hung in a new house meets its first real heat and its first damp winter in the same year. Frames shift by a millimetre or two, and a latch that met its keep perfectly at handover starts to catch, or the bolts of a multipoint stop throwing cleanly. Forcing the key is what breaks things.
Most of the time the fix is an adjustment of the hinges or the keep, not a new lock. Under Spain’s building law (the LOE), the builder answers for defects in finishes for one year from handover, so put it to them in writing first; if you would rather have it done now, it is done and you keep the invoice.
A home that has been lived in for years is a different job, on the lock change page. If you are locked out of the new place before any of this, the door is opened the gentle way.
In order
How a handover visit goes
-
Tell us what you were handed
How many keys, whether they came sealed, and which doors: front, slider, storeroom, garage.
-
Book a day
Planned work, at a time that suits you, ideally in the first weeks after handover.
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Each door checked
Cylinders measured, latches and bolts tried against the frame, anything that drags noted.
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Options and price, then the work
You see what is fitted and what could replace it, agree the price, and only then is anything changed.
Everywhere in the municipality, from Mil Palmeras to Lo Romero: where we go. To book, use whichever channel suits.
Questions
Questions from new owners
The builder handed us sealed keys. Do we still need new cylinders?
Not always. If the keys came in a sealed pack with a security card, and the cylinder is a recognised make, it may be one fitted for you at the end. If the keys were loose or on a builder’s ring, change the cylinders.
Should the builder fix a front door that has started to stick?
Usually, yes. Under Spain’s building law the builder answers for defects in finishes for one year from handover, so report it in writing first. If you would rather not wait, it can be adjusted and you keep the invoice.
Can you change the lock on the community gate of our block?
Only with the community’s say-so, through the administrator or the president, because every owner has a key to it. Your own front door, storeroom and garage door are yours to decide.
Is it worth fitting a better cylinder than the one in the specification?
Often it is the cheapest upgrade a new door can get. A good anti-snap cylinder fitted flush with the guard plate costs little next to the door itself. You are shown what is there and what could replace it.
Next
Usually next in a new home
Guides that point here
Just been handed the keys?
Tell us which doors you were given keys for, and how they came. We will say what is worth changing.