Do I need to pay thousands for a fire alarm in my hallway?

ComicGeek

There's nothing to stop you and your neighbour undertaking a fire risk assessment yourself as joint freeholders - in fact, you both should have been doing this already. Your neighbour has lost control of this by allowing their purchasers to employ someone else to do it - they are always going to cover themselves and suggest more than needed, but now it would take someone brave/foolhardy to suggest a lower provision. 

Martin_the_Unjust

Does the person who did the fire risk assessment also sell fire alarms perhaps?

timww

@NameUnavailable I think my front door is not a 60-minute fire door. I've told the neighbour I'll upgrade this. The surveyor had some issue with the hinges on another door. All fine to get these things looked it. 

No, the quote was I think from a separate company. No idea if the surveyor recommended them.

timww

@ComicGeek My neighbour commissioned the survey himself at the request of his buyers' solicitor. The buyers are going to want to see the report now and will try to extract the cost of the improvements out of him.

KingL2

Yer, you need to get your own survey done that (1) represents your interests and (2) is reasonable. It'll cost a couple of hundred quid (don't get a freebie), but you need to get an expert, balanced viewpoint to start from.  In my (limited, unprofessional) experience, 30 minute doors and 2 x (£10) F2 battery smoke alarms would be more-like the norm here. 

And get ready to fall out with your neighbors!



edit: its not quite clear whether the buyers want to extract the costs out of 'him' or you.  If he has to cover the costs to make his sale, then why would you care? If someone is expecting you to cover half the costs (or ongoing management costs), then get into defensive mode. 

Oh, and do you notice how all the points made  in the fire report are just 'advice' and 'recommendations'? Yeah, Look into that.

ComicGeek

timww said:

@ComicGeek My neighbour commissioned the survey himself at the request of his buyers' solicitor. The buyers are going to want to see the report now and will try to extract the cost of the improvements out of him.

So don't hand that over. Do a fire risk assessment between you two (templates on the gov.uk website) - you could upgrade your front doors to 60 minutes, make sure you both have a smoke alarm in your entrance lobbies (to pick up any smoke coming in from the stairs) and decide if you want to stop there.

No specific need for an external company to do the risk assessment. 

NameUnavailable

I think the fire door needs to be FD30 rated to meet the current regulations.

deannagone

Thank you for an interesting thread.  This is something I hadn't thought about with upstairs and downstairs flats.

NameUnavailable

Some other thoughts.

The potential buyer has paid out for a fire risk report? As joint freeholders you have responsibility for the building safety but as I mentioned, I think this is limited to ensuring you have fire doors and self closers on the entrance doors to your flats, and you should keep communal areas free of stuff.

The buyer might just be very particular but it does seem odd that they paid for this report and (are?) insisting on a fire alarm being fitted.

I would wonder if I would want this person as a neighbour and fellow freeholder! What are they going to demand next? I'm sure you don't want to appear difficult to your current neighbour but it's not up to you to meet his buyers demands. 

Jonboy_1984

Until last year we lived in a small block of flats that was managed by a very fair and professional management agent (who specialise in student housing but also do some residential blocks such as the one we lived in).

It had five flats off the foyer and their assessment resulted in a single mains smoke powered alarm in the foyer and strict management of keeping it free of any belongings.

(Whether the latest regulations on flat fire safety would have changed anything I don’t know).