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Council to charge leaseholders for sprinklers
A London council has approved plans to make leaseholders pay for the cost of retrofitting sprinklers in its tower blocks through service charges.
Wandsworth Council has previously committed to installing sprinklers in all 100 of its residential buildings of 10 storeys or higher.
On Monday, the council’s Conservative-led executive gave the green light to proposals to attempt to recover the estimated £24m cost of the works through leaseholder service charges.
A report by Brian Reilly, director of housing and regeneration at the council, said it has received legal advice that this route would be possible.
The charges will be between £3,000 and £4,000 for each of the 2,358 leasehold flats set to have sprinklers installed.
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“As these costs… will be imposed upon leaseholders with relatively short notice, it is recommended that, with respect to the cost of the sprinkler systems only, existing repayment arrangements for resident leaseholders be extended from 10 months to 48 months,” the report added.
It said an extension beyond this “may draw criticism from other leaseholders facing relatively substantial bills for major works”, such as 1,231 households which were billed more than £3,000 for major works in 2015/16.
Emma Chadwick, partner at law firm Winckworth Sherwood, warned that other landlords’ leases may not allow service charges to be used for sprinkler systems, and that most “are very clear that you can only recover the repairs to the building”.
Mr Reilly’s report said the “standard” Wandsworth lease “enables the council to do such things as the council may decide are necessary to ensure the efficient maintenance, administration or security of the block”.
The authority is also replacing cladding on two blocks, Castlemaine House and Sudbury House, as part of its overall £30m spend on fire safety.
Croydon Council, which has committed £10m to install sprinklers in its 25 high rises and one supported housing block, will attempt to fund its own programme through slippage in its Housing Revenue Account Planned Maintenance and Improvement Programme.
A spokesperson for the Labour-led authority said: “We will not be charging our tower block leaseholders to contribute towards the council’s costs of installing fire sprinklers. Leaseholders do pay towards the upkeep of their properties through a service charge, and this will include sprinkler maintenance once they are in place.”
Inside Housing’s Never Again campaign on fire safety calls for the retro-fitting of sprinklers in all tower blocks.
Read more about the campaign here
