U Hold The Key Extra Charges
At U Hold The Key we are up-front with our pricing and procedures. There are times when we may need to raise charges for circumstances that are outside of the control of U Hold The Key. The guidelines are below (not exhaustive) and will apply to Business and Residential customers.
When may additional charges be raised?
Lost/mislaid/additional keys
If you lose or mislay your key on or close to site, we will be required to change the lock or place an additional lock as a temporary measure. As site manager needs to visit site to change the lock, or to place an additional lock to temporarily secure the store, a callout fee of £50.00+VAT will be applied, plus an additional key charge of £25.00+VAT
If you are certain that the key has been misplaced away from site, so is non-urgent, and a site managers visit is not required, we will change the lock/place additional lock when the site manager is next on site. This is at your own risk. In this case, the additional key charge of £25.00+VAT will be raised, and we will post the key to the address on the account. If you need a replacement key urgently and need a site manager to meet you, a callout fee of £50.00+VAT will be applied, plus an additional key charge of £25.00+VAT. No duplicate keys are not kept on site which will affect same day availability on some sites.
If you require additional key(s) we can usually accommodate this. We will take an additional key deposit of £25.00 inc VAT per extra key ordered, 50% of which will be refunded when you return all keys when you vacate the store. This covers our costs to get additional keys cut. We will take requests for additional keys from the account holder only, or in the case of a company, on the authority of your main office, with a named person collecting, or posted to the address on the account. Please note that the keys to our locks are a specific range unique to U Hold The Key, so cannot be copied.
Lost fob
Across our self-storage sites, we have electronic gates/barriers where you will use the fob that we provide when you collect the key. If you lose this fob, we will add a payment to your next invoice of £25.00+vat to cover the cost of a new key fob and sending it out to you in the post. If you require this immediately, and a site manager needs to visit site to accommodate this (subject to availability), a callout fee of £50.00+VAT will be applied in addition to the fob charge.
Broken keys
Our keys are heavy duty for the high security lock that we provide when you take up your store. If you do break your key in the lock and we need to engage a locksmith, this cost is passed on to the customer. The charge for the locksmith is £65+vat callout, which includes the first hour, then £36.00+VAT per hour/part hour, plus 0.50p+VATper mile return. The time starts when the locksmith leaves their depot and ends when they return. If the U Hold The Key site manager is needed as well, a callout fee of £50.00+VAT applies. Charges quoted are Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm. Charges outside of these hours will differ. You will also need a replacement key, which the locksmith will endeavour to bring along, which will be charged at £25.00+VAT. Please note that we do not allow customers to arrange their own locksmith or other trade; if any individual does so, they will be responsible for any charges for making good any damage and/or replacement lock/key. Leaflets with advice on dealing with locks in cold weather are available onsite, or via head office.
Operating issues
Our stores are steel shipping containers with a very secure locking mechanism, which needs to be opened and closed in a specific manner. When opening and closing the store, you must ensure that the bolts are aligned correctly, and that you remove the necessary parts of the lock, or you will be unable to operate the doors. Please refer to our online ‘how to’ videos for guidance at https://www.uholdthekey.co.uk/videos. Our site managers, as part of the key collection appointment will ask if you are familiar with the locking process and will demonstrate if necessary (observing the appropriate social distancing requirements) Callouts for user error will be charged at the standard callout rate of £50.00+VAT.
Damage to the container
Our storage containers must not be damaged in any way by the hirer of the container, this includes all entities of the storage container, doors, lockbox, flooring, internal and external walls. If we are notified of any damages that have occurred during your hire period, we will be required to repair this and invoice in accordance of the repair.
Vacating your store
When you are vacating your storage container, we ask for you to remove all your belongings before returning the key. If anything is left in the container, we will first contact you to remind you to remove the goods left. If you do not clear the store within a reasonable time, we will dispose of your goods, and raise a minimum charge of £100.00+VAT for doing so. The exact charge will depend on the nature of the items abandoned, eg hazardous waste, or items that need to be disposed of by 3rd parties such as refrigeration equipment will be determined by the costs to U Hold The Key.
Ad-Hoc call outs
At times our site managers are called to sites when non customers drive onto site by mistake or when customers have not followed our key return procedure of opening our gates/barriers before posting the keys through our site office/letterbox. While we appreciate accidents do happen, if a site manager is called out to release a non UHTK customer, the standard callout of £50.00+VAT will be applicable, payable in advance by card/bank transfer prior to the site manager accepting the callout. A UHTK customer will have the charge added to their account. The site manager will call to advise that they are on their way; once this call has been made, the full callout will apply, even if the person has later been able to leave site prior to the site managers arrival.
Vehicles left on site
All of our stores are accessible by vehicle, and you are welcome to drive your vehicle to your store for loading/unloading, as long as you are not restricting access to other customers’ stores. However, for the safety of all users, we do not allow vehicles to be left on site unattended. If a vehicle is left on site, we will follow our procedure to attempt contact with the vehicle owner/keeper to agree a timescale to have the vehicle removed. If the owner/keeper cannot be located or an agreement is not adhered to, we reserve the right to have the vehicle removed by a third party. All associated costs will be passed on to the owner/keeper of the vehicle.
What will not subject to additional charges
Faulty key/lock/door
If the issue with a lock, key, door etc is proved to be faulty equipment, or due to natural wear and tear, charges will not apply. If you notify us that there is an issue, we will investigate the problem and keep you updated as we resolve this.
On-site maintenance
We do keep our site and stores in a good state of repair, but there will be occasions where our self-storage sites require extra attention. Wherever possible, we will notify our customers when this happens, but in instances such as power failures, internet problems, accidental damage or issues caused by adverse weather, it will not be possible to give advance warning. We may have to engage 3rd party engineers, and/or wait for parts to arrive to resolve issues of this nature. In these circumstances, we will take steps to ensure that customers can still access our sites, but may not be able to give advance notice.
