Terms and conditions for a security and alarm installer

A security and alarm business sells equipment, installation and, in most cases, a continuing monitoring or maintenance contract. The terms have to deal with all three, and with the customer who has been burgled and wants you to pay for what was taken. I draft customer terms around how your business actually works, for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Intruder alarm, CCTV, access control and monitored security installers in England and Wales, whether you trade as a sole trader or a limited company. Most of you fit systems in homes and also in shops, warehouses, offices and rented property, so the same terms have to work for consumers and for business customers, who are treated very differently by the law.

What matters in a security installer's terms

A system is not a promise that nothing will be stolen

The claim that reaches me is the customer who was broken into and says the alarm failed. Your terms should describe what the system does, state plainly that no security system prevents crime or guarantees detection, and exclude the value of stolen property, consequential loss and business interruption. Against business customers a cap and an exclusion are tested for reasonableness under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, so the figure needs to bear some relation to your insurance. Nothing in the terms can remove liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Monitoring, response and contracts that keep running

Monitoring, keyholding and police response are continuing services, usually with a minimum term and a renewal that runs on until one side gives notice. Say what the notice period is, how the price can be reviewed, and what happens if the customer stops paying. For consumers, one-sided variation rights sit on the grey list under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 the headline price shown must include every mandatory charge, so the monitoring fee cannot surface only at signing.

CCTV footage, remote access and data protection

Fitting cameras leaves your customer answerable for the recordings, but if you hold the login, retrieve footage on request or host it for them, you are handling that material on their behalf and the customer's data protection obligations will reach you through the contract. The terms should set out who controls the system, how long you hold credentials, what you will and will not do with footage, and that the customer is responsible for signage, camera angles across neighbouring property and dealing with requests from people who have been recorded. A separate data protection agreement usually sits alongside.

Surveys at the customer's home and cancellation rights

Most domestic sales are agreed at the kitchen table or over the phone after a survey, which brings them within the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The customer has fourteen days to cancel. If you order a panel, drill walls or start monitoring inside that period without the customer's express request, you may get nothing for it, and where the cancellation information was never given the period can extend by up to twelve months. The order paperwork and the terms have to solve this together, not separately.

Codes, equipment ownership and the customer who switches provider

Sooner or later a customer moves to another provider and wants engineer codes, passwords and the system signed over. Decide now whether equipment is sold outright or stays yours while a monitoring contract runs, what you release on termination and what you charge for it. Retention of title is worth little once a panel and cabling are fixed into the building, so your real protection is payment timing, backed for business customers by interest and fixed compensation under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998. Withholding access to a system paid for in full invites a complaint.

Maintenance visits, false alarms and what the customer must do

False alarms cost the customer their police response and cost you evening call-outs. The terms should put open windows, pets, poor housekeeping and untrained users on the customer's side of the line, with a stated charge for visits that turn out to be user error, and should require the customer to maintain the power, broadband and mobile signal the system relies on. Set out what a maintenance visit covers, what is chargeable, what response you offer inside and outside working hours, and the obligation to report faults promptly rather than after the burglary.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

Can I be sued if a customer is burgled and the alarm did not sound?

A claim is always possible. Whether it succeeds turns on whether you took reasonable care and on what the terms say about what the system does. Well drafted terms describe its function, exclude the value of stolen goods and business interruption, and cap the rest. Against a consumer they cannot limit service liability below the price paid under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Can I charge a customer for attending a false alarm?

You can, provided the charge is set out before the customer commits and reflects the real cost of the visit. Against consumers a charge out of proportion to the work is vulnerable under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, so price it as a call-out, record what the engineer found, and drop it where the cause was your equipment.

What if the customer changes broadband and the signalling stops?

That is a common reason a system sits unmonitored while the customer believes it is live. The terms should make power, connection and signal path the customer's responsibility, require them to tell you before changing provider, allow a chargeable reconfiguration visit, and confirm that monitoring is suspended for as long as the path is down.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Data protection agreements and privacy terms, £795
• Contract review, £495
• Terms and conditions for an electrician
• Terms and conditions for a locksmith

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.