Residential Alarm System and Keyholders

[Evocator]

Hi

Just a quick question for the BiB If I may.

What is the "legal" requirement for notifying the Police and/or the Environmental Health department of keyholders for a residential alarmed property?

My alarm has been triggered by an attempted break in and I have now been told that it is a legal requirement to make keyholder information available to both the Police and the Environmental Health Dept.

This information is available via the neighborhood watch co-ordinator, but how far does one have to go? The alrm system does cut out after 20 mins by the way.

Thanks

[pdV6]

Not sure of the legislation, but AFAIK the alarm installer must have keyholder information so that if somebody rings the number on the box they can potentially put the police in touch with a keyholder.

Also AFAIK this has nothing to do with a desire to protect your property and everything to do with noise nuisance!

Personally, I use a trustworthy neighbour as the 1st keyholder - its the near neighbours (if anyone) that a sounding alarm will annoy, so why not cut out the complication and give them a key and their own disarm/reset code?

>> Edited by pdV6 on Friday 14th January 11:12

[Evocator]

Thanks, but I need to understand is the minimum level (legal requirement) I must achieve. Once this is established I can go beyond the minimum requirement using solutions as you suggested.

If the Alarm System Company is not trading or does not provide 24x7 service, how does the Police contact then?

I still require the "legal" requirement so I do not find myself on the wrong side of the law

[zumbruk]

AFAIK, from having a monitored alarm, the requirements differ between forces. In Bedfordshire, the keyholder has to be within 20 minutes of the property, and the Police prefer that they are male. We do not use a neighbour, since I would not want to lumber them with being called out in the wee small hours to potentially face a scrote, so we pay a commercial keyholding service.

IME, if the police arrive, they walk round the property and if there are no obvious signs of a breakin, they leave without waiting for the keyholder. Dunno what happens if there has been a break-in - it's never happened. Yet.

[chrisgr31]

Why don;t you ask where in this legislation the legal requirement is? You can then look it up.

It seems sensible that someone somewhere should be a keyholder, and that someone should know who the keyholder is. At my last house a couple of neighbours had keys, and all the neighbours had my mobile number and my parents neighbour so a keyholder could always be got hold of. The police or council certainly had none of this information.

My theory being if the alarm went off the neighbours would call me. On the two occasions the alarm triggered the neighbours checked the property to see if any indication of a burglar, then called me, and I called a keyholder to reset the alarm.

I haven;t heard it is a legal requirement to supply keyholder names.

[pdV6]

Evocator said:

Thanks, but I need to understand is the minimum level (legal requirement) I must achieve. Once this is established I can go beyond the minimum requirement using solutions as you suggested. If the Alarm System Company is not trading or does not provide 24x7 service, how does the Police contact then? I still require the "legal" requirement so I do not find myself on the wrong side of the law

Sure - AFAIK (with no evidence to back it up) the minimum legal requirement is that you give your alarm company the keyholder info. Not your fault if the alarm company isn't contactable 24h (although I bet it is if its a NACOSS approved instller).

If the system's monitored, then there's added complication of the BiB requiring that a keyholder is within 30min of the property, I think.