Restricted Access Problems in Countryside Apartments

[markh]

Hi all

Myself and neighbours are looking for any help or advice after purchasing apartments from Countryside Properties.

Countryside has built our apartment block with access to intercom and entrance to our building leading on to the communal car park. They then installed coded security gates on the car park, along with a coded pedestrian gate. We originally thought that our intercom system would be connected up to the external gates to allow guests / delivery companies etc... to contact residents. That however wasn’t the case!

We’re now in a situation where guests or others cannot contact us as the gates are locked with no other access route to our building door or intercom.

We originally thought this was an oversight and Countryside would correct our problem, but were very surprised to discover that Countryside acknowledged the design fault but refuse to do anything about it! Countryside have advised us that this is how we purchased the properties from plan, and that we were fully aware of this at time of reservation!

After numerous calls, writing several letters and issuing Countryside with a united residents request for action to correct our problem, they are currently still unwilling to act.

All help or advice appreciated!

Many thanks
Mark

[willyj]

Try asking your Local Authority how they feel about this as it has implications for access for the emergency services, the Fire Brigade in particular.

[Mark D]

Mark

Best thing to do is find out who carried out the Building Control function first. When you have that ask them about fire brigade access. It may be that the fire brigade does not need access to that part of the building as they have access to other parts. I assume that you live in an apartment complex so see if you have a dry riser as the FB will need access to that. If there is a contravention and you have a NHBC policy you can make a claim under section 4 of the policy.

Good luck

Mark