No lighting in communal entrance hall

ordnancesurvey84

Hi,

I have recently rented a flat in a converted house which has a communal entrance hall, which I need to enter to access my front door. When I moved in, I noticed that there was a light fixture on the ceiling, but that there didn't appear to be a light switch anywhere to turn it on. When I come home late at night, I either have to fumble around to find the keyhole on my front door, or use my smartphone's torch.

I pointed this out to the letting agent, who sent round an electrician to investigate, and who then told me that the light fixture was not connected to a power supply.

Is it reasonable for me to expect there to be a working light in the communal entrance hall? I don't know how complicated / expensive it would be to arrange a power supply, as there would presumably need to be a separate electricity meter to which the communal supply was linked.

Thank you for your advice!

pmlindyloo

I don't think this is an unreasonable request especially if there is a safety issue involved. For example, do any of the other tenants have to climb stairs in the dark?

The LA seems to be 'on the ball' so a polite letter requesting some form of lighting is the way to go. Using battery powered lights fixed to walls is a cheap alternative.

As regards your own front door we use a battery powered light near the keyhole which works well.

moneyistooshorttomention

Indeed - I would be focusing myself on the landlord/lady might cause an accident to happen with this.

All it would take is someone leaving/dropping something on the stairs and an upstairs person (or their visitor) walks downstairs and trips over it en route (because they can't see it - courtesy of no light) - and ...bingo...the landlord/lady has a claim in against them.

ordnancesurvey84

Thanks guys. It's hard for me to make that argument, as there are no stairs involved! (The stairs are immediately on the other side of my front door, which does have lighting.) It's just a communal hallway which I have to walk along. It's more of an irritation rather than a genuine safety issue - and it just doesn't feel very homely, when I arrive home and have to start fumbling for the keyhole with my iPhone (other smartphones are available!).
I've had a quick google, and I could get a battery operated motion-sensored light which can be stuck on to the wall, but I guess I just feel misled, as there is a light fixture, with a lightbulb in it - overhead - which must have been disconnected from the power supply during the conversion of the house into two flats.

ComicGeek

The communal entrance hall should have adequate fixed lighting (definitely not only battery operated) and emergency lighting in the event of a power cut etc. Anything less than that is unsafe regardless of when the conversion to flats was undertaken.


Do you have your own electricity meter for your flat, and is there a second for the flat above? My guess would be that to save money the landlord didn't bother fitting a separate elec supply for the communal areas - the light on the stairs is probably run from the consumer unit of the flat above, and they didn't have any landlord supplies to run the light outside your door from.


If that's the case then what else hasn't been done properly during the conversion. Emergency lighting and general lighting should have been checked by Building Control during the conversion, so also likely the landlord didn't bother with that either.

Red-Squirrel_2

I'm guessing there's no smoke alarm to the communal area either? Not sure if that's legal, other should know for sure.

ordnancesurvey84

Thanks ComicGeek. I'm actually the one who has the upstairs flat, and my front door is just at the bottom of the stairs, so the lighting to the stairwell is within my flat and connected to my electricty meter. Yes, the downstairs flat has its own electricity meter, but I suppose because the communal area consists only of a rectangular hallway - it seems to lack its own electricity supply. I'm just not sure how worthwhile it is to make a fuss about this. The person who lives downstairs is an owner-occupier, so she and my landlord would have to share the cost of installing a communal area electricity meter and a light switch - although, clearly she would also benefit from having a light in the hallway!

Joseriously

Is there a management company involved?

ordnancesurvey84

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

I'm guessing there's no smoke alarm to the communal area either? Not sure if that's legal, other should know for sure.

No - there's no smoke alarm there! But then there isn't a smoke alarm in every single room in my flat either (there's just one on the first floor and one on the second floor) and I'm sure the ground floor flat has one too, so not sure if there is a legal requirement for there to be one in the entrance hall, simply because it's a communal space.

ordnancesurvey84

Joseriously wrote: »

Is there a management company involved?

There is a freeholder company which owns the building. That's all I know. The person who has the downstairs flat is a leaseholder, so I assume that my landlord is a leaseholder too. But there is no regular servicing of communal areas or anything like that.

moneyistooshorttomention

I wonder if the Fire Brigade might have something useful to say about this?

NB; I do understand the thinking "There's a part of the electric set-up - so where's the rest" as I moved into my current house and noticed a missing light bulb somewhere. Promptly replaced it and wondered why the light switch for it wouldnt work - and it turned out there was a light switch for it (I think) but it was in another room altogether. Duly sorted as part of the electric modernisation I had done....:cool: