HUD won't give me keys

[Donald Brinkley]

I settle on my first HUD foreclosure next Thursday which, other than 2-week settlement delay, has gone pretty smoothly I think. That is until I learned today that HUD isn't giving me the keys for the property at closing. They are sighting liability concerns and essentially by not giving me the keys forcing me to rekey or change the locks on the property thereby ensuring some contractor who made a copy can't break in after closing. It seems that this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I get the concept they are going for at least.

However, this makes me scratch my head. Is this a normal HUD policy or just this specific listing agent being strange? If it's normal, how do you more seasoned investors handle this? Is a locksmith charge just a normal charge for every HUD property? Or is this just an agent being strange and not something I should worry about coming up with a process for handling as I won't see it often?

My agency doing the final walk through said I can "carry the key with me" to closing and if I happen to make a stop at a local hardware store who's to know.  Or she said we can just leave the door unlocked for the few hours we are gone.  So hopefully one of them work out.  But other than that, how would you handle the situation?  Any other ideas?

Thanks!