Service charges set to increase as flat owners have to pay for fire door inspections
Following the recent parliamentary wrangling over who should pay for cladding remediation, it may have escaped leaseholders’ notice that the new Fire Safety Act includes new rules on front doors. In the past, flat front doors were “demised” to the resident. Or in other words they were the responsibility of the flat owner and, for the purposes of the fire safety regulations, they weren’t included in the common parts of the building overseen by the property manager. That has now changed. The new Act has amended the existing fire safety rules set out in the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 [FSO] to cover not only “the external walls of the building, including cladding” but also “fire doors for domestic premises of multiple occupancy”.