Fire Safety Standards in Residential accommodation

[kurnal]

Three very interesting and contrasting stories feature in this weeks FIA Midweek Messages.

http://www.fia.uk.com/en/Information/Details/index.cfm/obj_id/06A5312B-1FCF-4D7A-878BB224E7F740B0

http://www.fia.uk.com/en/Information/Details/index.cfm/obj_id/698ED3A5-ED40-46F1-B63C626B5532A7BC

http://www.fia.uk.com/en/Information/Details/index.cfm/obj_id/F96C5503-7BC1-4068-829214DBFD346329

Does this mean the balance is about right? Or should our legislation mirror the Scottish in which common areas of flats are considered part of the domestic premises and outside the scope of the Fire Scotland Act?

[mr angry]

Kurnal, with reference to articles/stories one and three I would assume from reading them that these premises would be licenced HMOs and therefore fall under the scope of the Fire (Scotland) Act anyway.

[colin todd]

Anger, I was not going to embarrass Kurnal by pointing this out, given his clear and entirely appropriate admiration of matters Scottish.

[kurnal]

Fair cop guv. But why let accuracy stand in the way of a good story?

[colin todd]

Admit it Big Al, you are angling for honourary Scottish citizenship when we get independence. Put me down as a referee, as we embrace people with weird, quirky minority views.

To quote the Proclaimers, (Scotland's Story):

All through the story the immigrants came
The Gale and the Pict, the Angle and Dane,
From Pakistan, England and from the Ukraine,
We're all Scotland's story and we're all worth the same.

You may even wish to change your name to MacKurnatowski.

[Davo]

Prof

I'll at least try to answer the question.......

It seems to me that prosecutions of this type are on the increase, hopefully the landlords asociations disseminate the message to its members.
Whether this will have any effect on those landlords with deep pockets and short arms I have my doubts


davo

[Midland Retty]

It is a case of legislative overlap.

The Housing Act can be used to enforce fire standards in all parts of the HMO, so you could argue that there isn't really any need for the RR(FS)O to apply to the common parts.

The only difference is that under the Housing Act landlords can only commit summary offences (in terms of fire safety) where as with the RRO you can have either way offences.

So the sceptic in me is wondering if the application of the RR(FS)O was deliberate. Also local authorities can't always prohibit the use of HMOs on the spot, due to the complexities of the HHSRS. Again this is where the RR(FS)O can help.

In my experience Local Authorities / Fire Authorities work together and agree who will be writing reports and notices etc to ensure there is no unecessary duplication.

So to answer your question, yes I think we need to get rid of the overlap, and perhaps mirror the scottish system, but in doing that we must also make sure the Housing Act is robust enough to hit bad landlords hard, and to give EHOs a better toolkit to prohibit dangerous premises on the spot.