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QUESTION: HOW TO HANDLE DOMESTIC DISPUTE
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Ken,
    Need a little help with this one. We have a bitter domestic situation and from what information that we have been provided, the wife moved out of the residence last fall and filed for divorce. The husband continued to live in the family home and none of the customer’s contact and verbal pass code information was changed until a month ago when the husband provided a scanned signed email message requesting us to update the emergency contact list, change the secret verbal password and to remove the wife’s name from the account. We also know that the husband changed the alarm system keypad code.
    Last week, the wife went to the residence and set off the alarm system by forced entry (apparently the locks were changed as well). The police were dispatched and the husband contacted. The husband then contacted the police and informed them that she was not supposed to be there but she was not arrested, just told that she had to leave.
    Now we get a call from the wife telling us that since her name is on the contract for the alarm service and she says that her name is on the deed and mortgage for the residence, she is now insisting (from advice that she got from her attorney) that we restore the contact list and secret verbal password back to what it originally was before the husband changed it.
    At this time, we have asked both parties for some legal paperwork that indicates whether one or the other has the right to be in the home, but as of yet, neither has submitted anything to us. He doesn’t want us to let her restore the info that we have and she is saying that she still has as much right to be there as he does.
    At this point, we do not know how to handle or who legally has the right to be in the residence. The residence is in Illinois.
Rick Drake
American Burglary & Fire
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RESPONSE
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    Tough call, but I think best advice comes from an old song, "Love the one you're with".  Maybe I'd change it to "Love the one who pays you".   In this case it sounds like the husband.  One thing is for sure, you shouldn't be put in the middle and you also shouldn't be expected to have to make a legal determination.  The legal paperwork you requested should be limited to a court order, not arguments by either party or their attorneys.  
    A few observations.  
    Your role is limited to dispatching the police when the alarm goes off.  Yes you have changed codes and the call list based on the husband's request, but the only inconvenience the wife suffers is that the alarm goes off and the police arrive.  Hopefully the alarm will turn off [if it resets and keeps going off that will annoy both the wife, central station and cops if dispatched again] and the only inconvenience the wife will suffer is having to deal with the cops; they will make their own decision how to handle her right to access to the house.  
    She is on the contract and undoubtedly has rights under that contract. Under the described circumstances I think you should get the husband to sign a new contract, or modify the existing one in writing.  It would be a good idea to require him to indemnify you against any claim by his wife claiming any rights under the existing contract.  
     But even if you could be deemed in breach of the contract by the wife I don't see significant exposure.  She may claim emotional distress if the cops show up.  Probably the greatest damage she could claim is the cost of replacing the alarm system with one she controls, something she is not likely to do.  
    If you don't change contracts then arguably you should share codes with both parties, but that's likely to cause the husband, who is paying you, to change companies, which brings us to my opening paragraph.
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COMMENT ON RECALL NOTICE FROM MAY 22, 2015
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Ken
    Our company was made aware of this issue. However there has been a whole lot of other issues not related to life safety that GE/UTC in general feels very comfortable in not revealing. I've been in this industry 35 years and noticed in the past 10 years the decline of responsibility. The thinking goes if no one sees it then where's the harm. A culture of secrecy. Why? Well it's the same old issue. Money!  It's not "don't fix nothing that ain't broke" its "don't fix nothing that ain't noticed." 
Dennis M
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