Legal verdict means costs of ‘waking watches’ may fall on landlords

The Fire Protection Association says a recent First-Tier Tribunal decision and appeal dismissal highlight the responsibilities that landlords hold in relation to up-to-date fire risk assessments and the costs of so-called ‘waking watches’.

An appeal made by Radcliffe Investment Properties, the owners of a converted block of flats in Manchester, was dismissed by the Upper Tribunal after the landlord stated that the building’s leaseholders should be liable to pay the costs of a waking watch.

Park Rise, a former office building was repurposed into a block of 96 residential flats in 2018. 

Prior to the conversion, a fire risk assessment was carried out, which identified that there was a “moderate” risk to life and that a further FRA be carried out by January 2019. 

In May 2019, Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service became aware of further fire safety defects after the fire alarm for the building was disabled due to a water leak. The malfunction of the fire alarm was automatically registered with GMFRS and subsequently investigated. Inspectors discovered that the “compartmentation and fire separation measures were inadequate”. 

Additionally, with no information on the material used to clad the building, the fire officer assumed it was an aluminium composite material.

To avoid a prohibited occupation order being placed on the building, landlord Radcliffe arranged for a 24-hour waking watch to be implemented. The costs incurred amounted to £57,984, and the landlord attempted to recoup this sum through its service charges to leaseholders. 

However, 80 flats brought a First-Tier Tribunal case against the landlord to determine whether they were liable to pay for the costs of the waking watch.

The FTT determined that the leaseholders were only liable for the period until the fire alarm was reinstalled, a seven-day period amounting to £5,859, with the remaining sum to be paid by Radcliffe.

Radcliffe then appealed the decision with the Upper Tribunal, stating that the FTT had applied the “wrong test to determine whether the costs of the waking watch were reasonable”. However, the Upper Tribunal moved to dismiss the appeal. 

The Upper Tribunal stated: “It is an offence under Article 32 of the Fire Safety Order to fail to comply with a requirement imposed by Articles 8 to 22 of the order, and the fire officer had been satisfied that the landlord was in breach of Article 9 and said so in the enforcement notice he served on 7 June.

“Had the landlord complied with the law, no waking watch would have been required, because the fire safety defects would have been rectified long before the fire alarm panel was disabled by the water leak.

“In my judgement, the FTT was entitled to conclude that the costs of the waking watch were not payable by the leaseholders.

“The waking watch was one part of the cost of making the building safe. The cost of the necessary remedial work to put right the fire safety defects was increased by the cost of the waking watch, but that increase was wholly avoidable.”

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