Leaseholders dispute fire safety charges
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Leaseholders from a Southwark tower block have made a bid to challenge bills for work being done on their building.
Southwark council has been making improvements to its high-rise properties after a fire in a 14-storey block, Lakanal House in Camberwell, where six people died.
The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority served three enforcement notices on the local authority after the tragedy on 3 July. These were for not carrying out fire risk assessments on Perronet, Castlemead and Marie Curie blocks.
Leaseholders at one of the blocks, Perronet House, say the estimated bill they have been given for the work is twice as much as an original verbal calculation and that the work does not need to be done immediately.
Leaseholders Richard Reynolds and Damion Schmacher represented their fellow homeowners at the Residential Property Tribunal Service in London yesterday.
‘It’s only because of a tragedy they are looking at this [the rewiring of the buildings] in more detail,’ said Mr Reynolds.
‘But they are making mistakes and making decisions that are wrong. We need a consultation so they can learn from us or learn from key inspectors.’
Mr Schmacher said there had not been enough consultation and told the tribunal ‘we feel, as leaseholders, there has been a prejudice against our rights of information’.
Leaseholder Alex Mochnacz, who was at the tribunal, claimed they were initially told verbally, at a meeting, bills would be about £7,500 a household but this had gone up to £15,600 in a recent estimate.
As the works have not yet been completed – they are to take another few weeks – the final bills have not yet been calculated. Mr Mochnacz thought the final bills could come to something in the region of £30,000. ‘That’s a lot of money to pay,’ he said.
The leaseholders suggest the council should pay for work done above that required by the fire enforcement notices. This also includes items on the bills such as pest control – which they already pay for in service charges – and changes to the bin chutes.
The council claims the work is necessary and if it does not do it now it will cost more later.
Alastair Redpath-Stevens, representing the council, said: ‘The local authority does not really have any choice.
‘They would prefer to consult. The fact the fire authority has decided to serve this enforcement notice has forced the local authority into a corner.’
The rewiring was being done for the safety of its tenants and leaseholders in the block, he added, and it would be more expensive to do the work later as the new ceiling being put in would have to be removed and replaced again.
Electrician for the council Jamie Anderson told the tribunal the wiring in Castlemead and Perronet House was original – over 40 years old – and needed replacing.
About 40 per cent of the residents of Perronet House are leaseholders, the tribunal heard.
Tribunal chair Frances Burton is likely to make a decision in the next couple of weeks.
The leaseholders commissioned electrical contractors to come up with an estimate of how much the rewiring of Perronet House should cost.
As the figure was about half the cost of the council’s estimates the leaseholders say they want to bring the local authority to tribunal again to dispute the amount charged on the bills.
Inside Housing is running a campaign calling for action to stop preventable deaths from gas and fire. For more on this see our Safe as Houses campaign page.
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Readers' comments (6)
sharon | 17/11/2009 5:19 pm
This raises an interesting situation. Under normal circumstances s20 notices would have been applicable but because of the lack of fire risk assessments, the fire authorities have issued enforcement notices, seemingly making the consultation process null and void. It may surprise some that leaseholders are concerned about the financial cost under the circumstances but it stems from the question as to why fire risk assessments were not carried out as a matter of course as a legal requirement in the first place. There were plenty carried out after the tragedy.
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Damion Schumacher | 18/11/2009 10:07 am
What I don't think is made clear in this article is that leaseholders are not contesting the need for our building to be brought up to fire safety standards.
We want our home to be safe.
However, 50% of the work the council is doing to our home is totally unrelated to the fire safety enforcement notice and the council is using the notice as an excuse to do it. This is what we object to and this is what we are contesting.
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sharon | 18/11/2009 3:41 pm
Of course everyone wants their building to be safe and it wouldn't be the first time that essential works have been hijacked as an opportunity to carry out totally unrelated works. This would also increase the cost without due consultation either. The clarification is welcome.
Regards
Sharon
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Jim Paton | 19/11/2009 4:31 pm
Residents of a tower block in Hackney recently examined their 2007 fire risk assessment and found all but one of the items listed in it as requiring urgent attention, with priorities varying from 2 weeks to 6 months, had been ignored.
One of those ignored items was the inadequacy of corridor doors to protect an escape route. These were the very same doors for which the long tenants had recently paid extortionate charges for painting and some bodge repairs. Now the doors have to be taken out and thrown away to be replaced with properly fire-proof ones. Hey-ho! That's another round of s.20 notices then.
They're not having it, so that one looks like coming to a fight, too.
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Freddie | 22/11/2009 11:41 am
Jim - I'm interested in the new 'fire-proof' doors you say have now been installed. Do you know who installed them and who made the doors, by any chance? Do they have a certificate??
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Been to lvt of Hackney | 03/05/2010 12:53 pm
Interesting Article eventually one day there will have to be a national debate on this whole issue whereby the councils along with their management agents sit down and decide how much is reclaimable from leaseholders, before the works are costed, then they attempt to reclaim this amount by extremely creative accounting, that will not stand up to an audit, and what does not make sense is this fact of life. IF it is going to cost more than approximately £15,000 per unit to carry out any works to a council block, it is automatically deemed to be too expensive and those blocks get earmarked for decantation and demolition, so therefore it's impossible that a council would sanction works costing £30,000 per unit (so what must we read between the lines) the bills must surely be a mistake.
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