Am I being charged too much for fire safety works?
We’ve all been there. That sinking feeling when your managing agent tells you that you have to spend thousands of pounds more this year than last year. When you ask why, they either don’t respond or give a vague and unhelpful answer.
One of our consultancy clients faced this issue recently, and was told that the additional spend was for fire safety “because of new laws and regulations”. It goes without saying that there is nothing more important than safety, but how can you be safe while keeping your bill as low as possible?
The best general advice we can give is to ask questions. If your managing agent cannot clearly explain exactly what is required and why, keep pushing. Once you understand what is being proposed, ask even more questions. For example:
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 do require certain documents to be gathered. But if surveys and reports are needed, how else could information be obtained? In our experience, it is always possible to use at least some existing records rather than pay experts to create a full set of new ones.
Who has compiled the list of what needs to be done? Never trust recommendations from a company who then offer to carry out the remedial works themselves – they are writing their own cheques. Always make sure that scope is defined by an impartial third party.
What alternatives have been considered? For example, the Foxbrush team is currently investigating whether existing doors in a listed building we manage can be upgraded rather than ripped out and replaced with brand new fire doors. Could this work in your building?
Does everything need to be done at once or can the work be done in stages, based on level of risk?
A good managing agent will know how to assess different options and apply intelligence to make pragmatic decisions on your behalf.
When it comes to safety, the worst thing is to do nothing at all. But it’s also very bad to take a box-ticking approach, racking up an enormous bill on works that may not really be proportional to the level of risk.
A good managing agent will know how to assess different options and apply intelligence to make pragmatic decisions on your behalf. But if that isn’t happening, you may find that you need to start asking probing questions yourself to get the right result. Good luck!