Renting- neighbours have key to our flat in case of fire?!

sammyba

That's what I'm hoping for, we're only planning to be in the property for another 8 months max, but we still want to be safe and have our things be safe! What's even worse is that you need a key to get out of our front door so if there was a fire, the neighbors would be able to enter our flat but wouldn't actually be able to get out of it! So they would just be stuck in our flat!

libf

sammyba wrote: »

That's what I'm hoping for, we're only planning to be in the property for another 8 months max, but we still want to be safe and have our things be safe! What's even worse is that you need a key to get out of our front door so if there was a fire, the neighbors would be able to enter our flat but wouldn't actually be able to get out of it! So they would just be stuck in our flat!

Then it's not a fire escape and there's no point in doing it...

Norman_Castle

libf wrote: »

Then it's not a fire escape and there's no point in doing it...

Easily solved by having a key to that door available in the flat.

chris_m

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Easily solved by having a key to that door available in the flat.

Saves having burglars smash the door down to get out, eh?

On a more serious note, I have doubts as the sense of one key being required to escape in the event of a fire, let alone two. When a place is full of toxic smoke, possibly dark too, and the occupants are, understandably, disorientated it can be hard enough finding the escape route, let alone finding a key, then finding a keyhole into which to put the key, etc., etc.

Davesnave

libf wrote: »

Then it's not a fire escape and there's no point in doing it...

As I said earlier, contact the fire brigade. They love this sort of thing.

Mojisola

Davesnave wrote: »

As I said earlier, contact the fire brigade. They love this sort of thing.

And also ask for your local crime prevention officer to take a look at the planned changes.

Norman_Castle

chris_m wrote: »

Saves having burglars smash the door down to get out, eh?

Many flats have thumb turn locks as a fire safety measure. I believe some authorities insist on .

sammyba

Okay, spoke to the insurance company who are going to get back to us with regards to insurance... they seem pretty baffled by it all!

The whole thing has just made me feel really uncomfortable! Obviously the neighbours could be lovely and would never dream of abusing the situation. But there is also the possibility they could be nightmare neighbours!!

Thanks for all the great points, feel like I have a bit more ammo to go back to the landlord with

ToasterScheme

Its seems like the conversion planning for the downstairs flat dropped the ball.

At some point [probably too late] someone realised that the conversion would need fire escapes. And the developer had to think hard how they would be provided.

The easy way is through a part of some other flat (i.e. yours). This only works as a viable plan if he can negotiate the necessary access with the people that own it (i.e. your landlord). The developer cannot insist on this, or just assume that such access will be accepted. Nor can the fire authorities (I would have thought).

If the other flat just says 'no, you can't have a fire escape through here' then the developer can't do the flat conversion. [Unless they satisfy the fire regs in a completely different way] It's totally their problem.

Whether the landlord would be able to agree the request even though the tenant disagrees, I don't know.

teddysmum

My brother-in-law once lived in the downstairs flat of a former ( old style terraced) house, where had access, via the front door and hallway. The upstairs resident had a front door key, too, but there was a solid door sealing off the bottom of the stairs and only they had a key to this.


My son one lived in a house of multiple occupancy and had things stolen from his room , the door to which was locked. Neither this nor the communal front door had signs of a break in,so the theft was probably by another occupant (or an acquaintance of theirs) who picked the lock. The suggested installation of a fire escape , would open the OP to something like this.