Keyholding and Alarm Response

At two in the morning an alarm activates at your premises. Somebody has to go. The question is only whether that somebody is a director who has been asleep, a manager who lives nearest, or a licensed officer whose job it is.

Keyholding moves that obligation to us. We hold your keys in secure custody, attend activations on your behalf, establish what has happened, secure the property, and give you a timestamped record of the whole thing by the time you wake up.

Why hand your keys to a third party

The argument is rarely about cost. It is about what actually happens when a member of staff attends an activation alone.

They are not trained or licensed for it. They arrive at a building that may have been broken into, with no information about what is inside and no means of assessing it from the perimeter. If someone is still on the premises, an untrained person has walked into it. Most employers have not thought about whether their insurance or their duty of care extends to an employee doing that at 3am, and most would rather not find out in a claim.

The practical arguments follow from the same place. Response is consistent rather than dependent on who is available. Attendance is recorded, which matters for insurers. And the person going out is doing the job they are licensed and trained to do, at an hour when judgement matters most.

What happens when an alarm activates

The sequence is the same every time, which is the point of it.

The activation reaches our control, either from your alarm receiving centre or directly from a monitored system. An officer is dispatched and attends. Standard target response is 30 to 45 minutes from receipt of the activation — a target, not a guarantee, and affected by traffic, weather and distance like anything else on a road.

On arrival the officer completes an external inspection before entering: perimeter, doors, windows, signs of forced entry, anything out of place. Internal inspection follows where it is safe and within the agreed scope. If there is evidence of intrusion, police are called and the officer does not enter alone. If the building is secure, it is reset and secured, and the cause is recorded.

You get the report either way. What was found, what was done, what time the officer arrived and left, and whether anything needs your attention — which is usually the question that matters at seven the next morning.

How your keys are held

Key custody is the part clients ask about most, and rightly.

Keys are individually logged and coded, and stored securely. They are never labelled with your address or the name of the property they open — a coded key that is lost or stolen opens a door nobody can identify. Custody is recorded on handover and on return, so there is a documented chain of who held what and when. This follows BS 7984, the British Standard covering keyholding and response services, and the obligations are written into our terms of business rather than left as an assurance.

On termination, keys are returned within five business days of written instruction. If keys are ever lost or compromised, on either side, the requirement is immediate notification so the premises can be rekeyed before the exposure becomes real.

False alarms, and why we will tell you about them

Most alarm activations are false. Faulty detectors, doors not closed properly, heating systems, insects, and in one memorable case a balloon left over from an office party.

Every attendance costs something, so a site generating repeated false activations is quietly expensive and also erodes the response — an officer attending the same false alarm weekly is a worse officer at the genuine one. We report the pattern rather than simply invoicing it, because the fix is usually a detector position or a door closer, not more attendances.

Call-outs are charged at the rate agreed in your quotation, and confirmed false alarms are chargeable. We would rather say so plainly than surprise you with it.

The record, and why it is the differentiator

Keyholding is the service where the audit trail matters most, because you are not there to see any of it.

Every attendance is logged through HitDesk with its time and location: when the activation was received, when the officer arrived, what was found, what was done, and when they left. That record exists as the visit happens rather than being written up afterwards, and it is available to you directly.

It matters in three situations. An insurer asking what happened on a particular night. A pattern of activations that turns out to be a building fault rather than a security problem. And a dispute about whether anybody attended at all — where an unlogged visit is, evidentially, a visit that did not happen.

Where we cover

Our operational base is Southampton, and keyholding is the service where that matters most, because response time is a function of distance. We cover Hampshire and the surrounding area, including Portsmouth, Winchester, Basingstoke, Andover and Alton, and the wider south.

Where a property sits well outside a realistic attendance radius, we will say so when quoting rather than accept the contract and explain the response time later. A keyholding arrangement that cannot meet its own target is worse than none, because you have stopped making other plans.

How it is priced

Keyholding is normally a standing monthly charge for holding the keys and being available, plus a call-out rate for attendances. The variables are the number of properties, the alarm arrangement, the attendance radius and how often the site actually activates.

We quote per property rather than from a rate card, because a single unit in Southampton and a portfolio spread across three counties are not the same commitment. Ask and we will give you a figure for your sites.

How it fits with everything else

Keyholding sits naturally alongside mobile patrols, where the same officer round can include your property, and with monitored CCTV, where an operator can often verify an activation before anybody is dispatched — which removes most false call-outs before they happen. For empty buildings it belongs with vacant property protection. The full range is on our security services page.

Related reading: remote CCTV monitoring, vacant property security solutions and manned guarding vs CCTV.

Accreditation

Every officer attending your property holds a valid SIA licence and is screened to BS 7858. Andor Group holds ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, certified for security guarding services — keyholding and response sit inside that scope — together with SafeContractor accreditation, SSIP approval and Constructionline Gold membership. Certificate numbers and expiry dates are on our accreditations page.

Common questions

How fast will someone attend?

Our standard target is 30 to 45 minutes from receipt of an activation. It is a target rather than a guarantee, because traffic, weather and distance apply to us as much as anyone, and we will tell you honestly what is realistic for your postcode before you sign anything.

Who actually attends?

An SIA-licensed officer, screened to BS 7858. Not a subcontracted driver and not a member of your staff.

What happens if there has been a break-in?

The officer does not enter alone. Police are called, the property is observed from a safe position, and entry happens once it is safe to do so. You are contacted, and the property is secured before the officer leaves.

How do I know the officer actually attended?

Every attendance is logged in HitDesk with its time and location, and the record is available to you rather than produced on request afterwards.

Are keys labelled with our address?

No, deliberately. Keys are coded and logged, never labelled with the address or property name, so a lost key cannot be matched to a building.

What if we want our keys back?

They are returned within five business days of written instruction. There is no arrangement that holds your keys hostage.

Do you charge for false alarms?

Confirmed false alarms are chargeable at the agreed call-out rate, and we say so upfront. We also report the pattern, because a site activating every week usually has a fixable fault rather than a security problem.

Discuss keyholding for your premises

Tell us how many properties, where they are and what the alarm arrangement is, and we will tell you what response time is realistic and what it costs. Get in touch on 020 4602 3974 or at sales@andorgroup.com.