How to Pick a Keyholder for your Home

You may be aware when a monitored alarm goes off, a monitoring station will call you to make sure everything is okay. But did you know you can nominate additional keyholders to be called, if you can’t answer when the monitoring station phones.

What is a Keyholder?

So, who should be a keyholder? It should be a person you trust. Ideally it should be a

• Friend
• Neighbour
• Family member

They should be willing to respond to your property in any instance and should know the pin-code and your safe word of your HomeSecure alarm system. You probably have a great friend or family member in mind, but don’t forget to ask them before adding their name to the list, as a keyholder does have a few responsibilities.

Keyholder Responsibilities

Don’t worry though, 9 times out of 10 yourself or your partner or a person who lives in the home will be the ones receiving a call from the monitoring station. Additional keyholders are more of back up for the ‘what if’ situations. Maybe you’re in the cinema and can’t answer the phone, or on a hike with no service, it is just to cover any situation that might come up and you’re not available at that exact moment.

A keyholder should ideally live no further than 20 minutes from your home and of course have a key to your house. They should know your HomeSecure safe word as the Monitoring Station will call them if they can’t get in touch with you and this will be one of the first questions they will ask. They should know all access points into your home and know your passcode for your system.

If your property does look like it has been broken into, a keyholder should always wait for An Garda Siochana to arrive before entering the home. Finally, you’re probably thinking this is a long list and you will probably be the one responding to an alert anyway, but just to be sure all keyholders should save our monitoring station number to their phone (01 295 23 66) just in case.

Existing HomeSecure Customer?

If you’re a HomeSecure customer and are now thinking the Keyholders you have named on your account are nothing like the listed above, you can always update your keyholders here.

You may also want to refresh your keyholder list if you’re heading on your summer holidays, know your keyholder has a new number or have moved house.

If you are thinking of getting a HomeSecure alarm into your home, think who meets the criteria mentioned and will be happy to be a keyholder for your property.