Cost of replacing a fire door

cherry76

Brother has put an offer but there is a section notice about fire door replacement with Islington council. The seller said she  was given an estimate if £12,000 but got it reduced to £6000 on appeal. She will pay for it I find it hard it’s still expensive at £6000 in a block of four flats. He also asked whether there are more major works for the next five years. EA and seller said they do nit know. Should he be cautious is there something they are not disclosing. Solicitor said to wait for the lease pack. He told solicitor to wait for results of survey before doing more research. Any advice pl. Thanks

grumpy_codger

What's 'section notice'? 

Fire doors are a little more expensive than normal doors, but I think the labour costs about the same and in total it's much less than £6K, let alone 12K.

cherry76

Section 20 notice of major works.

grumpy_codger

Google says "In the UK, the typical cost for installing fire doors ranges between £400 and £1,300 per door, depending on materials and labour."

https://www.mgfiresafetygroup.co.uk/fire-door-fitting--installation-746-p.asp - this company says ~£750 to install one door, £4500 for 9 doors.

A door costs £2K max if you need something 'premium'.

IMHO £6K is daylight robbery / extortion. Any chance your brother misunderstood something and £12K/£6K was for 4 doors that would be reasonable?

AFAIK, every owner can arrange installation (and certification) personally and pay for it individually.

FreeBear

grumpy_codger said: A door cost £2K max if you need something 'premium'.

 IMHO £6K is daylight robbery / extortion. Any chance your brother misunderstood something and £12K/£6K was for 4 doors that would be reasonable?

Don't forget the snout-in-trough premium that gets added to council/corporate tenders. I'm not surprised a £2K door gets charged at £6K or more.

eddddy

Just some general comments for you to investigate...

• If it's a section 20 notice, it's likely to be for a door (or doors) in a communal area.

• If it was the front door to an individual flat - it's usually the flat owner's (leaseholder's) responsibility, so a section 20 notice wouldn't be relevant. (But it's possible that this is an 'unusual' lease)

• Is £6k the total cost of the works, which will be shared across all flat owners (leaseholders), or is each flat owner (leaseholder) having to contribute £6k each?

(A section 20 notice would specify the total cost of communal work - but maybe the council added a breakdown of contributions per flat, or the seller calculated a breakdown of contributions per flat.)

cherry76 said:

 The seller said she  was given an estimate if £12,000 but got it reduced to £6000 on appeal. 

FWIW, there isn't really a concept of "appealing" a section 20 notice. So you might want to investigate what the seller means.

Or does the seller mean they took the council to a tribunal?

cherry76

Needs to find out more, the £6000 is only for her flat which seems a lot. I am concerned if she is telling the truth £12,000 being reduced to £6000. Previously sale fell through after 3 months reason was section is there something EA and seller not telling brother. Not sure whether should put back survey and ask solicitor to get out more but he said he will get these info with the sale pavk. I do not want brother to spend money and then had to pull out. Urgently need some advice. The block is owned by council with commercial property downstairs and two council tenants. Brother has been looking to buy a long time and I do not want to advise him to pull out now until we know more about section 20 and survey might also flags some issues.This is doing my head in. Thanks

HampshireH

It's not unusual for Freeholders to have responsibility for replacing fire doors (Leaseholder responsibility to pay) in council/HA leases because it enabled the landlord to maintain fire safety 

£6k for all 4 is reasonable.

Individually it is absolutely not. The section 20 notice will evidence the quotes obtained. The solicitor should have asked for copies of all notices so they can be reviewed.

The freeholder will also advise on any major works.

Stop relying on the seller and put the enquiries into the Council re sales team via the solicitor.

gwynlas

There is always a premium to be paid on properties where LA is freeholder as trade companies have to follow LA guidelines and might have had to tender for work. This means they are generally larger companies with higher overheads than sole traders

I would not purchase in a mixed council/private block as some social tenants could be problematic but have security of tenure.

Emmia

gwynlas said:

There is always a premium to be paid on properties where LA is freeholder as trade companies have to follow LA guidelines and might have had to tender for work. This means they are generally larger companies with higher overheads than sole traders

I would not purchase in a mixed council/private block as some social tenants could be problematic but have security of tenure.

Problematic tenants also exist in wholly private blocks too - and even if they don't pay their rent, eviction is not easy.

£6k for a single door (FD30 compliant presumably) is extortionate - I would query this and check it's not for multiple doors.

HampshireH

gwynlas said:

There is always a premium to be paid on properties where LA is freeholder as trade companies have to follow LA guidelines and might have had to tender for work. This means they are generally larger companies with higher overheads than sole traders

I would not purchase in a mixed council/private block as some social tenants could be problematic but have security of tenure.

Leaseholders can be Equally problematic and own the place. Some may even be worse and make tenants lives hell. (I know right who'd have thought! )

People are people they aren't categorised by the type of tenancy they hold.