The order of the steps when the house was empty
Touch nothing before the police have looked. Marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of the file, and a door already repaired erases them. If the caretaker or the monitoring company reaches the property first, as often happens on the Font de Currault estates, ask them to photograph everything before moving anything, including the gate and the pedestrian gate if those were forced too.
Report the break-in, then notify your insurer within the period set out in the policy. When the owner lives abroad or spends most of the year elsewhere — common on the Mougins estates — set out plainly who does what: who reports it, who meets the tradesman, who approves the quote. A written mandate given to whoever is on site stops everything stalling at the moment of approval.
Only then do the permanent repairs happen. In between, temporary securing closes the property without wiping out what still has to be recorded: a temporary lock, the frame made good, a broken glazed opening boarded over, the garden gate shut again. In the village, that temporary work has to spare old joinery. Keep every part removed, drilled cylinder or torn-off faceplate: the insurer may ask to see them.
The way in is almost never the front door
On a walled property, people rarely come in at the front. The living room window, the service door, the pool house door or the garage leaf are quieter, and the cypress hedges and walls that shelter the grounds also hide whoever is inside them. Securing starts at the point that was actually used. On the sloping plots of Les Bréguières, the rear boundary deserves the same look as the doorstep.
In the village, leverage works on the timber: it is not the lock that gives but the frame around the keep, split on old joinery. Fitting a new lock into that frame deals with half the problem. The timber is made good and the keep reinforced first, and only then is anything refitted.
If keys have gone missing, replacing the cylinders is no longer optional, and it covers every access on that same ring: gate, pedestrian gate, cellar, plant room. Tell the condominium as well, at Mougins-le-Haut or in a Val de Mougins block: a lost hall or garage key concerns the whole building.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our securing your home after a break-in page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Mougins.