The monitoring bill arrives every month. The service behind it stopped being worth the money a while ago: a technician visit takes weeks to book, the keypad has been chirping since spring, and every call starts with reading your account number out to someone new. You want to leave, and the agreement in the back of a filing cabinet says you signed for five years.
Leaving is usually possible. Leaving cheaply comes down to dates, and most of the money businesses lose on these contracts is lost by giving notice at the wrong moment or in the wrong form. Check the following before you call anyone.
If you cannot find your copy, ask the provider for one. They hold the signed agreement, and requesting it commits you to nothing.
Put all four on one page. Every decision that follows depends on them.
Most commercial monitoring agreements renew automatically, so the useful question is what they renew into.
Some roll onto a month-to-month basis once the initial term is over. If yours does and that term has already passed, you may be able to leave with a single month’s notice. Others renew for a further year, or for the full original term again. Miss the notice deadline on one of those and you have committed to another year or more before you get a second chance to leave.
Inside the term, the termination clause sets the price. It is usually headed early termination or liquidated damages, and the charge is normally calculated from the monthly payments left on the term: sometimes all of them, sometimes a percentage.
A worked example, with invented numbers: 14 months remain at $60 a month, and the clause charges 80 percent of the remaining payments. Leaving today costs $672. The same clause costs $192 four months before the end. So the cheapest exit is sometimes to give notice now for the end of the term and put up with the service in the meantime.
Look in the same clause for anything charged on top: an equipment removal fee, a closing inspection, or a requirement to clear the outstanding balance before the termination counts.
If you bought the equipment outright, it is yours and it stays on the wall. If it came as part of the monitoring agreement with little or nothing paid up front, the provider may own it, or it may only pass to you at the end of the term, and the agreement may give them the right to come and take it out. We set out how buying and financing compare in what a commercial security system costs in Colorado Springs.
Ownership also decides what the next company can do with it. Equipment you own can usually be kept and reprogrammed. Equipment you do not own may have to be replaced, which changes the cost of moving.
Monitoring accounts are bought and sold, and most agreements let the provider transfer yours without asking you. The buyer takes on the same terms, renewal clause included. Notice sent to the company you originally signed with does not count if someone else holds the account now, so check the name on your most recent invoice before you write to anyone.
If the company has stopped responding altogether, you are dealing with a different problem, and the steps are in what to do when your alarm company stops answering.
Colorado has had an automatic renewal statute, C.R.S. 6-1-732, since January 1, 2022, and it was amended in 2025. It requires renewal terms to be disclosed clearly up front and sets out how a customer must be able to cancel. Legal commentators read it as reaching some business contracts as well as household ones. It applies only to agreements signed on or after its start date.
If your agreement predates 2022, the statute is unlikely to help. If it is newer and the renewal terms were never clearly put in front of you, that is worth raising with an attorney before you pay a termination charge. Whether the clause holds is a legal question, and we will not guess at the answer for you.
Then keep paying until that end date. Stopping payments early can send the remaining balance to a collections agency, which costs more than the termination clause would have.
When the old account closes, the panel keeps arming and the siren keeps working, but its signals stop reaching anyone. Book the changeover so the new 24-hour monitoring starts the same day the old service ends.
Two pieces of paperwork move with it. Your Colorado Springs alarm permit stays in your name and needs updating to show who now monitors the building. And if your insurer holds a monitoring certificate, ask for a new one that names the new central station and account number.
Once the dates are settled, the move itself is normally the simple part. On most commercial systems the switch is a programming change at the panel, and the sensors, wiring and keypads stay put. How that works is explained on our alarm system takeover in Colorado Springs page. If you would like the dates checked before you send notice, call 719-888-7180 and we will read through the agreement with you.
It depends on what the agreement renews into. On a month-to-month renewal you are committed for one more month. On an annual or full-term renewal you are committed until the next notice window, so put that date in the calendar now.
Rarely. Most commercial agreements require written notice, and some specify certified mail. Use the method the agreement names and keep proof of delivery.
Often not, at least until the term ends. Read the equipment or ownership clause. Agreements with a low up-front cost frequently leave the panel and sensors owned by the provider.
The keypad, sensors and siren keep working. Monitoring is what stops: once the account closes, signals from the panel reach nobody. Have the new monitoring start on the same day.
It can. The statute took effect on January 1, 2022, covers agreements signed from that date, and was amended in 2025. Whether it affects your renewal clause is a question for an attorney.
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