Issues with my fire risk assessor?
Hello, I commissioned a London-based fire risk assessor to undertake an assessment of the communal area of my terraced property in North London.
There are 2 self contained flats. The ground floor has 2 bedrooms, and the first floor has 3 bedrooms which includes a loft conversion.
The ground floor tenants were out when he arrived despite me informing them, so he proceeded to inspect the first floor. After viewing the first floor, he then forgot to look inside the ground floor flat and sent me a report having only looked inside the first floor flat.
There were several issues:
- He classified my property as an “additional HMO” which could have led to my receiving a criminal conviction
- He went far beyond the remit of a fire assessment of the communal areas and suggested that we could no longer use one of the bedrooms in the first floor unless a “mist” was installed. I suppose this is similar to some kind of water sprinkler system as we had a gas cooker and not an electric cooker
- The report stated that I did not have a Gas Safety certificate and an up-to-date electrical inspection report when I had
- He took a week to send the bogus report, and the following day sent me a letter giving prices to do various jobs such as a door survey when my property is not an HMO
- He failed to report that we had emergency lighting and smoke alarms in the 2 communal hallways that were hard wired in addition to smoke alarms on all levels of the properties
- I had a meeting and challenged him on these and other issues. He said he would refund my £295 and stated that the report was now void.
I engaged another professional who charged me £150 and gave me a clean report with no issues.
I’d like to urge all landlords to be on your guard when appointing a fire risk assessor and be wary when the assessment means engaging them to do additional work.
Thank you.
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