Fire risk, fire doors not working and management company refusing to reply

novacat2021

Hi, we live in a development managed by a property management company and we own our flat. The fire doors do not work as the fob will not open them. We are on the fourth floor with only lift access currently. I have emailed the management company since June 2024 to advise them the fire doors don’t open and if there was a fire we would be stuck on the fourth floor but they continue to ignore my emails and I can’t reach them by phone. Legally where do I stand here? What measures can I take?
thanks

Bigphil1474

You could contact the local fire brigade as they can serve legal notices on the management company. Worst case scenario they prohibit use of the upper floors though. 

MattMattMattUK

novacat2021 said:

Hi, we live in a development managed by a property management company and we own our flat. The fire doors do not work as the fob will not open them. We are on the fourth floor with only lift access currently. I have emailed the management company since June 2024 to advise them the fire doors don’t open and if there was a fire we would be stuck on the fourth floor but they continue to ignore my emails and I can’t reach them by phone. 

Do you mean a Net2 fob or similar? When you say the fire doors "don't work", do you mean you cannot obtain access under normal circumstances? Normally in these cases the system allows full access when the fire alarm sounds, it unlocks all fire escape doors to allow occupants to exit the building, however they can be locked down the rest of the time to stop people storing things in there. 

novacat2021 said:

Legally where do I stand here? What measures can I take?
thanks

That depends on the actual circumstances, who are the PMC, have you raised a formal complaint, do they have a published complaints procedure? 

mark_cycling00

I'm not saying that the management company are behaving correctly but fire regs and guidelines in blocks are weird. We had all our fire extinguishers removed one year after a fire safety inspection. We had no fire escape either. 

It was assessed that residents must stay inside their apartments whist the fire brigade dealt with the fire or had to rescue us. Trying to put it out, opening doors that would give air to the fire was a no-no.

All the doors in the building had intumescent strips and were 60min+ fire rated or something 

Maybe discover if there's been an fire assessment recently and what it said. I think buildings insurance might demand these things too

eddddy

novacat2021 said:

Hi, we live in a development managed by a property management company and we own our flat. The fire doors do not work as the fob will not open them. We are on the fourth floor with only lift access currently. I have emailed the management company since June 2024 to advise them the fire doors don’t open and if there was a fire we would be stuck on the fourth floor but they continue to ignore my emails and I can’t reach them by phone. Legally where do I stand here? What measures can I take?
thanks

This sounds strange. It's fine for a fob to be required to get into the building...

.... but doors along a fire escape route should be usable "without a key and without any specialist knowledge". So you shouldn't need a fob to escape the building.

(As you can imagine, if the building is on fire and everyone is panicking, it's daft to delay people from getting out because they can't remember where they left their fob.)


Are you sure there aren't thumb turn locks on the inside of the doors, or push buttons saying "Push to exit" or boxes saying "Break glass to exit"?