Health & Safety
Recent penalties and fines handed out to “communal area” property owners and their managing agents have sent shock waves through the residential management sector of the property services community.
Interestingly we have also heard the words of our coalition government indicating their intention to reduce the burden of Health & Safety red tape. Those of us who have had to deal with various local fire officers and local authorities could be forgiven for observing that there are some inconsistencies in the governmental ‘strategy and approach’.
We property managers tend to find ourselves in some awkward situations where we are compelled to enforce interpretations of Health & Safety rules which our clients and leaseholders find difficult to understand and overzealous. As with so many of these situations, the fair and reasonable answer is likely to be somewhere in the middle.
There are many instances where dangerous Fire or Health & Safety risks can easily avoided by a common sense approach, for example, investment in preventative equipment such as smoke alarms or safety signs (which are not always aesthetically pleasing). Sometimes these risks are not overcome simply because there is a lack of awareness of responsibility on the part of the property owner. To illustrate the other end of the argument, some fire officers insist that materials within the demised areas are tested for their fire retardation to determine the fire risk of the building as a whole. Test requirements to this extent for an entire block of flats are so difficult to achieve that they would make a Fire Risk Assessment virtually impossible.
For better or for worse the penalties (which include a well-publicised risk of imprisonment) for property owners for not complying with Health & Safety law are severe. It is indeed a very brave managing agent who does not take their obligation to advise in this area of responsibility very seriously.
Confusing as some of the interpretations of Health & Safety may be, ignorance can never be an excuse. Ultimately those who administer the penalty or the sanction will of course take into account the honest intentions of those they deem to be the “responsible person”.
For moew information please contact:
Robert Plumb, CEO
HML Holdings Plc
020 8439 8529
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