Mortgage Expert Reveals Essential Safety Step Every Homebuyer Forgets To Take After Purchasing a New Property

Buying a new home comes with a lot of admin—from signing paperwork to securing insurance to organizing movers. But there is one essential step in the process of buying and moving into a property that one expert has now warned most homebuyers completely forget, even though it is key to ensuring their safety in their new abode.

Mortgage expert and lender Theoni Rapo, a loan officer with AnnieMac Home Mortgage in Rehoboth Beach, DE, has opened up about this must-do admin in a viral TikTok video. Almost every homebuyer she has worked with neglects to complete it.

The important step in question? Changing the locks.

“You would be shocked at how many check-ins I do with my clients, like, months in, and they still haven’t changed the locks yet,” Rapo, who goes by @theonithelender on the app, says.

For those who might be confused about the reason for this, Rapo explains that, while the previous owner might have told you they’ve passed over all existing keys, it’s highly likely that one might have been left with another person and forgotten about. This means that that person could one day gain access to your property.

“Hopefully, the reason why kind of goes without saying, but if it doesn’t, the sellers might have not given you all of the keys that they had, or maybe some got lost, or a neighbor has a key,” she says. “Who knows? But change the locks!”

Continuing her video, Rapo shared a couple more things that homeowners should ensure they do while going about purchasing a property—including keeping a copy of every document signed during the closing process.

“You’re gonna Wanna keep all of the things that you just signed at closing,” including the mortgage stuff, the title things, all of that in one place, she advises. “Having all of those things in one place, like all the important docs, people usually forget, but you really need it.”

She suggested using a document organizer and notes she often gifts them to her clients to help ease the stressful process of completing the process.

Her third tip has to do with cleaning—specifically in homes that are not newly built.

“Find where the dishwasher filter is and clean it,” she says. “Do the same thing with all of the air filters.”

Her followers weighed in with their own advice, with someone advising homebuyers to change the code if they have a garage.

“Don’t forget the garage code, CHANGE THE GARAGE CODE!!” the follower wrote.

“Clean out the dryer vent. Ours had so much accumulated, it was a fire danger,” said another.

One suggested having “the furnace, ac unit and hot water heater serviced.”

Another, who says they are a pet sitter, strongly agreed about the locks: “Seriously tho change the locks. I house/pet sit for a lot of people and the amount of people who leave keys with me ‘just in case’ or because they forgot I have one is crazy. Three clients of mine have moved and I still have keys for their old places.”

One person suggested another hygiene tip, urging new property owners to change out the toilet seats in their house, while another suggested that they examine the dryer vent in order to ensure it isn’t so clogged that it poses a fire risk.