Service Charge Increases

We discussed the practical implications of the new Fire Safety Act for managing agents and leaseholders elsewhere. In this blog, we examine servicechargesorted.co.uk/blogs/property-service-charge-disputes'>service charges

Recent Fire Door Legislation

The recently enacted legislation has led to a significant overhaul of the fire safety regulations for apartment buildings.

It is, in affect a retroactive lease revision. Managing agents who have spent years trying to persuade tenants to participate in voluntary fire door replacement and upgrade programs have found it to be a blessing. Now that these programs are set up, block managers must collaborate with freeholders and RMC clients to ensure they are included as valid service fee expenses. These fees improve everybody's safety. Before this, the Housing Act of 2004 gave local authorities the exclusive right to compel such an issue through the issuance of an Improvement Order.

How Ringley Deals With Fire Door Safety

Ringley has long sought opt-in fire door improvement programs. The servicechargesorted.co.uk/blogs/property-service-charge-disputes'>service charge, however, did not allow for the collection of money. Councils were often too busy to take action, and there was no opt-in reaction. Uniformity was lost and, in many cases, the building's value decreased if one or two owners upgraded or altered their doors. The new Act now takes care of all those problems and makes sure that flat front doors are improved to the necessary quality.

Service Charges

The principle drawback for residents is that service fee prices will increase due to fire door improvements and routine fire door inspections of owners' front doors and common fire doors. It will be difficult to enforce the new regulations.

The difficulties that managing agents will now encounter in scheduling a contractor to inspect every fire door in a building on a specific date are unprecedented. A significant failure rate will inevitably arise due to apartment owners refusing to allow access to their homes. These problems will inevitably result in more expense increases.

So what do we see as the response? If flat owners do not buy into this new regulation, it will not work and the residents will incur the consequences. We want to see a governmental push to educate and assist people to realise this. Are the new regulations going to cause people additional trouble? Most likely, yes. Will it, however, make their houses safer? It is our sincere hope that the new inspection regime will be met with cooperation from the people.