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Wandsworth Council loses bid to force leaseholders to pay for sprinklers
Wandsworth Council has had a legal application to force all its leaseholders in high-rise blocks to pay to fit sprinklers struck out by a tribunal.
The local authority was seeking a ruling which would have allowed it to force leaseholders to pay to retrofit sprinkler systems in residential blocks of 10 storeys or more.
If the court had ruled in favour, it could have entered flats without leaseholders’ consent to fit the systems and recoup some of the cost via service charges.
The application affected around 2,500 flats in the borough, and the residents affected would have had to pay between £3,000 and £4,000 for the sprinklers over 48 months, the council estimated.
But the tribunal found that Wandsworth Council was not entitled to ask for a “blanket determination” of leaseholder rights.
It is said that if the council wish to fit the sprinkler systems then it must consider each block of flats individually and could make an application to the tribunal on a block-by-block basis at a later date.
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Conservative-run Wandsworth Council announced plans to install sprinkler systems in all 6,400 flats in its tower blocks of 10 storeys and above the week after the Grenfell Tower fire on 14 June 2017.
Installing the systems would have meant each block would have to have an independent pressurised water supply, requiring the installation of additional pumps and tanks.
Pipework would be run through the communal areas at high level and into each property, and sprinklers would be installed in every room except bathrooms.
In September that year, its cabinet approved proposals to attempt to recover some of the £24m cost of the works through leaseholder service charges.
But five residents’ associations lodged objections to the plans, forcing the council to take the case to a First-tier Property Tribunal in July 2018. Around 200 leaseholders attended the hearing in October 2018.
They added: “Sprinklers are required by law in all new blocks over 30 metres due to their proven record on improving fire safety.
“It is perhaps surprising that a tribunal felt unable to consider an application aimed at ensuring that all residents of council tower blocks were entitled to similar levels of fire safety to residents of newly constructed blocks. Until primary legislation clarifies these urgent matters a two-tier fire safety regime will remain.
“The council is considering the merits of an appeal.”
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