Several incidents have now occurred that homes are re-keyed, with a lockbox and later robbed.

But its not the bank, or agents that are re-keying the homes.

Just yesterday we received a call from an occupant who called off our letter we left checking occupancy for the bank. He called upset asking why we re-keyed the home and half of his belongings were stolen. We of course didn't do that and later realized this happened on another home, a person who only posted a notice of default and the house was re-keyed but not yet had any items taken yet. Perhaps they were going to come back that night.

Seems like with public notices of NOD's and NOT's and dead lawns are making people's homes exposed to theives. Just wondering if this has occured to someone else. One incident I thought may have been a fluke, but another?

Oh WOW! That is super scary.

Sounds like amateur late-nite TV watchers work. They prolly follow a notice of default and the house looks vacant or is posted with an agents letter or atty's notice so they rekey it.


There was a big scam bust several years ago in CA with scammers taking up residence in vacant looking houses in an attempt to try to get title by adverse possession. Also renting out the houses is a common scam.

It's waaaaaay too easy to get a house rekeyed. They don't even require prepayment around here - it's a good ol' boy business. I could have all the houses rekeyed in a neighborhood by the time the kids got out of school if I wanted to.

There needs to be some regulation on locksmiths and some ID and proof of ownership or agency needs to be required by the person requesting the rekey.

alot of times i rekey it myself, i just watched the locksmith do it once, it only took him about 4 minutes. Now, sometimes i can even beat that time. Depends on the lock. If there looks like there may be alot of stuff inside, i will call the local cops to watch me do it, just makes me feel safer, and they always seem willing to come help.