Responsibilities as a council homeowner
As a council homeowner you have extra fire safety responsibilities. This is especially so if you sublet, as Ealing Council does not inspect the inside of your home or make any necessary safety adaptations. This means you must make sure any fire risks are removed, for example:
- do not store anything on balconies that could easily catch fire
- do not overload electrical sockets
- install smoke detectors and test them regularly
The Housing Health and Safety Rating System covers the safety of your leased home. To find out more about this, and your responsibilities if you are a landlord, go to the Communities and Local Government website.
Fire doors
The main thing to check as a homeowner is that your front door is fire resistant. Fire doors are built to restrict and delay the path of a fire and will save lives. The communal doors in your block are fire doors. Ealing Council is responsible for these self-closing glazed doors in the corridors and staircases. However, the terms of your lease state the front door to your individual property is your responsibility.
Many new homeowners install a new front door. Ealing Council strongly advises you to have a fire assessment carried out on your front door to ensure it complies with current regulations for fire doors.
Some, but not all, wooden doors are fire resistant, but in nearly all cases new UPVC or plastic doors are not sufficiently fire resistant. If the assessment shows your front door is not a fire door, we strongly advise you replace it with a new timber door made to British Standard 476: Part 22: 1987 or British Standard EN 1634-1: 2000.
Metal security grilles
Some homeowners have installed metal security grilles across their front doors. If a fire starts in your block security grilles will prevent you from leaving the property, and the block, as quickly as you should. This danger would be even greater if the fire were to occur in your own property.
Advice from the London Fire Brigade is to remove any door grille and replace it with another form of security.
Some homeowners have fixed security grilles to a part of the building that remains part of the council's responsibility, not part of their own property. Attaching grilles to council property is not permitted and any found will be removed. If we remove a grille and you fit a replacement in the same place, you will be charged for the cost of the second, plus any later removals.
If you sublet your property
If you sublet your property, you have extra responsibilities and legal obligations to your tenants.
You should consider the risks to your tenants in the event of a fire and take all necessary precautions to minimise those risks. This includes you, as the landlord, installing smoke detectors. It is also your responsibility to test them – you cannot pass this responsibility on to your tenants.
It is important that home ownership services have your contact details in the event of an emergency at your property. If you have already provided these details please make sure they are up to date.
If you sublet your property, please make sure your tenants are aware of the fire safety advice.
We are doing all we can to minimise fire risks. Please do your bit and follow this advice.