For buyers, sellers and anyone moving · focused guide
The last owner’s phone can still open your garage.
A house now changes hands with about forty accounts attached to it. The thermostat that answers to somebody’s phone, the doorbell recording to somebody’s account, the garage opener with four remotes still paired to it, and the router holding a password nobody wrote down. None of it is on a standard closing checklist. This guide is that checklist. By the end the house answers to you and to nobody else.
This guide is one of the titles in The Digital Life Management Library. The Library is $299 and includes everything we publish.
- The handover — five questions to ask before you make an offer, and what removing a device from an app does not do
- Cameras, locks, thermostats, alarms and the router — device by device, the two steps, and which one everybody skips
- What stays online after the sale — hiding the listing photographs, and blurring the house on street view
- The address change, in order — postal forwarding without the sites that overcharge, and the meter reading that settles arguments
- The fraud that follows a move — the wire instructions in your inbox, and the calls that start the week you arrive
- An ebook — PDF, instant download, no login
It downloads the moment you pay. There is no account to make and nothing to log back into, and you have seven days to change your mind.
What it is for
The week you move in, and the week before you move out.
It is for the evening before an offer, when five questions are still cheap to ask.
It is for the first week in the house, when a camera nobody controls is better than one somebody else controls.
It is for the seller who wants to hand over cleanly, which takes about two hours.
What is in it
Six parts, written from both sides of the sale.
Every chapter is written twice over: what the seller does, and what the buyer does. The spine of the whole thing is that removing a device from an app and clearing its access are two different operations, and only one of them is easy to do from the sofa.
The handover
Five questions to ask before you make an offer. Then three manufacturers, in their own published words, on what removing a device from your account does and does not clear. Then device by device: cameras and doorbells, locks, keypads and the garage, thermostats and hubs and whoever is still listed as a member, alarms and solar and the ones with contracts attached, and the router, which is the one everybody leaves.
The two lists
The seller’s list, which is about two hours the week before. The buyer’s first week, in the order things matter.
What stays online after the sale
Hiding the listing photographs, which are interior pictures of your house indexed and cached. Blurring the house on street view, which is permanent and cannot be undone by you or by anybody who owns the house afterward. And the parts that still apply if you are renting.
The address change, in order
The postal forwarding, and the sites that charge you many times over for it. Government, and the ones that do not talk to each other. Utilities, and the meter reading that settles arguments later.
The fraud that follows a move
The wire instructions in your inbox. Movers, mail, and the calls that start the week you arrive.
Keeping it, once you are in
Give codes that expire rather than permanent ones. The first year, in the order things go wrong. Then thirty minutes once a year.
The number worth knowing before you wire anything
12,368 complaints, and $275 million reported lost.
In 2025 the FBI recorded 12,368 complaints of real estate fraud with $275,110,419 in reported losses, up from about $173 million the year before.
Two honest notes, both of which are in the guide. That category includes rental and timeshare fraud as well as closing fraud, so it is not all wire fraud. And these are complaints people chose to file, so the real figure is higher rather than lower.
The chapter on it is four pages and the operative instruction is one sentence long. It is the cheapest page in the book to read and the most expensive one to skip.
For real estate professionals
License this as a closing gift for your clients.
A new owner spends their first week finding out that the thermostat still answers to somebody else’s phone. If you are a realtor, a mortgage broker, a title officer or a closing attorney, you can license this guide and give it to every client at closing, with your name on the handover rather than ours.
What a license covers
An agreed number of copies a year, delivered as a file you send or print, with no account for your client to make and nothing for them to log into.
What it costs
It depends on the volume and whether you want your own name on it. Tell us roughly how many closings a year and we will send one page with a number on it.
Who else does this
The same arrangement is available to estate planning attorneys, financial planners, accountants and bookkeepers, and funeral directors, each with the guide that fits their clients. See the licensing page.
Honestly
Who this is for, and who it is not.
This is for you if
- You are buying, selling, or both in the same month.
- There is a smart lock, a doorbell camera, a thermostat or an alarm involved.
- You are the seller and you want to hand over properly rather than guess.
- You are about to wire money to a title company.
- You are renting and the last tenant’s devices are still on the network.
This is not for you if
- There is no connected device in the house and you only want the address change. That is one chapter, and the free Digital Decluttering Checklist covers the adjacent habit.
- What you want is your whole digital life in order rather than one move. The Digital Life Management System is $179.
If you want more than this
Before the move, and after it.
A move is the one week everything in a digital life is touched at once. These are the two that pair with it.
The Digital Life Management System $179
Three months, two hours a week. Organize, protect, prepare, with the Workbook and the Record.
Protecting Yourself from AI Fraud and Scams $19
One verification habit that holds up against a cloned voice, which is the one that matters when wire instructions change.
Finally Get Your Contacts in Order $29
One contact list, correct, on every device, which is the other thing a move breaks.
Before you buy
The questions people ask.
I am selling, not buying. Is this for me?
Yes. Every chapter is written from both sides, and there is a seller’s list that takes about two hours the week before completion.
Does it tell me which buttons to press on my specific devices?
It covers cameras and doorbells, smart locks and keypads, garage openers, thermostats and hubs, alarms and solar, and routers, using what the manufacturers themselves publish. Menus move, so the guide teaches the two operations and what each one clears rather than a screenshot that expires.
Is removing a device from my app enough?
No, and that is the spine of the book. Three manufacturers say so in their own published words, which the guide quotes. Passcodes, paired remotes and stored settings can survive the removal.
Can I get the previous owner off my camera?
The guide covers claiming devices, what a factory reset does, and what to do when a device cannot be claimed. It is honest that powering a camera down beats leaving one running that somebody else controls.
I am renting. Is any of this relevant?
Yes. There is a page on the parts that still apply, and the network and device sections apply whoever owns the building.
Do I need an account to open it?
No. It downloads the moment you pay and it is yours on your own computer.
Can I get a refund?
Yes. Write to us within seven days and we will refund you.
The handover nobody puts on the closing checklist.
Devices, the listing photographs, the address change, and the wire instructions. By move-in week there is nothing left paired to somebody else. One payment of $29.
Instant download · No login · Seven-day guarantee
