Case Study: How a Cardiff landlord could have avoided a £10k fine
Cardiff Magistrates’ Court recently ordered a Cardiff landlord to pay more than £10,000 for multiple failures at the block of four self-contained flats she rents out on Blaenclydach Street, Grangetown.
Faults identified included:
- Inadequate structural fire protection to escape from the property
- No fire alarm system and defective fire doors
- Unprotected electricity meters
- Unsafe electrical installations
- Evidence of penetrating damp
- Dirty carpets
- Unsafe kitchen facilities
- Broken windows
Several fines were issued in relation to these faults totalling £10,000, as well as £2,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £190.
Below, we take a look at the causes of the fines and how they could have been avoided. Limited written details about the case have been released, but Cardiff Council did provide photos.
1. Inadequate structural fire protection to escape from the property
The Fire Safety Order (FSO) is a piece of legislation that legally requires communal areas in blocks of flats and properties rented out room-by-room to have a Fire Risk Assessment. Best practice is for a new assessment to be conducted every year, or sooner if there has been a significant change, such as a change in layout or risk, or if there has been a fire.
It's unclear if the landlord in this case had a Fire Risk Assessment. If she had, any competent assessor should have raised concerns about inadequate structural fire protection to escape from the property.
As above, it's a legal requirement to have a Fire Risk Assessment for a property of this type. But just having one on file is not enough. A good assessment will provide an action plan to get the building to a sufficient standard of safety. If this plan is ignored, landlords run the risk of being prosecuted if something goes wrong and they have not acted on the recommendations within it.
2. No fire alarm system and defective fire doors
This omission is likely to have been the catalyst for Cardiff Council pursuing the case in the manner they did.
Not having a fire alarm system is a severe breach of various legislation and British Standards, and could have had terrible consequences. It would be the first thing a competent fire risk assessor would have recommended in the legally-required Fire Risk Assessment for the communal areas. Additionally, the new Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 requires all rented properties to have a mains-powered fire alarm system installed.
The Council, the fire service and fire risk assessors all take their guidance for what type of fire alarm system should be installed from this LACORS document produced in 2009. This guidance was designed to simplify the fire safety legislation by providing a series of sensible recommendations that you can follow which should meet a satisfactory standard of fire safety in every type of property, irrespective of which legislation applies. LACORS as a body no longer exists, but nobody’s since produced a document like it, so it’s still the ‘go-to’ document for authorities.
Fire doors could have been defective for a variety of reasons: not adequately fitting the doorframe, a lack of a working overhead door closer or a lack of smoke seals.
Cardiff Council's minimum fire safety standards on houses converted to self-contained flats like this one can be viewed on the final page of their fire safety matrix.
Door between bedroom and hallway
3. Unprotected electricity meters
This is also something a competent assessor would have identified and recommend in a Fire Risk Assessment. Electrical fuse boxes typically have to be enclosed in 30-minute fire resisting materials, e.g. fire boarding, to help prevent fire generated by the fuse box from spreading quickly.
Electricals without fire proofing
4. Unsafe electrical installations
The new Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 requires an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) to be produced for every rented property. It must be done by a qualified person, such as a registered electrician. The report will detail any deterioration, defects, dangerous conditions and any non-compliance with the present-day safety standards that might give rise to danger. It will also offer recommendations to make good these observations.
Our electricians charge £114 inc VAT to produce an EICR, which is significantly lower than other contractors because of the amount of work we provide to them.
5. Evidence of penetrating damp
Penetrating damp is caused as a result of water entering the property through an external defect. Most commonly, it is caused by faulty guttering, downpipe or chimney stack, although it can occasionally be due to badly cracked or hollow render, or issues with the roof.
There do appear to be signs of the damp being attempted to be rectified by the landlord, e.g. pink plaster, but what we don't know is how long it has taken to get to that stage. As long as landlords act on such conditions within a reasonable timeframe of being made aware of them, there will be no comeback or prosecution.
The Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 gave Welsh Government the power to introduce The Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022. They prescribe the 29 ‘matters and circumstances' that must be considered when determining if a property is fit for human habitation. The first item on the list is damp. Read more commentary from us on this subject.
Damp chimney breast
Penetrating damp in the kitchen
6. Dirty carpets, unsafe kitchen facilities and broken windows
Other than the two photographs below, we don't know anything more about these issues. In isolation, they may not have resulted in prosecution, so were possibly included as added extras given the higher-risk offences described above.
Stairway carpet
Broken window
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The information contained within this article was correct at the date of publishing and is not guaranteed to remain correct in the present day.
