Dear Hannah
I would like to start saying that we comply with all requests even those that are not based on law but on subjective judgemment alone as long as those requests are not detrimental.
You say
“The statutory timescales set in Section 16 Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 and Section 235 Housing Act 2004 are both 14 days.”
Please show extract for my knowledge
You say
“We do not consider the space and layout of the first floor shower room to be adequate. While the spacings within our HMO scheme are recommendations and each case is considered on its own merits, the space in front of the WC and wash basin in this particular room fall so far short of the expected standard that a person cannot stand directly in front of either amenity. The third bathroom is in excess of the prescribed and adopted standards. If the amenities cannot be laid out to provide sufficient space, a practical solution would be to remove either the shower cubicle or the wc and then reconfigure the room as either a shower room without wc or a toilet with wash hand basin.”
In particular “We do not consider the space and layout of the first floor shower room to be adequate.” but we have several people rready to WITNESs it is indeed adequate. “consider” is not a matter of legilastion is an opinion.
In particular “While the spacings within our HMO scheme are recommendations and each case is considered on its own merits, the space in front of the WC and wash basin in this particular room fall so far short of the expected standard that a person cannot stand directly in front of either amenity.” We have several people prepared to witness that not only they can indeed stand thee way you say it is not possible but they consider it perfectly suitable. Once again this statement is a matter or opinion and easily defeated in court (using witnesses) if need be. Even if it is not possible to stand up infornt of the toilet, this bathroom is indeed lawful. And even if it is not possible to stand up in fromt of the topiled it is still poiisble to still use both the tiolet and the shower on the first floor. If we give in to your request we will either be able to take a shower or use the toiilet on the first floor, and this is BLATANTLY DETRIMENTAL. Basically if we complied with this request our house would be subject to a significat damage do to the loss of an important amenity. In case we lost the toilet on the first floor for instance the house would have two toilets insted of 3. The occupiers of the first floor would need to go down to the ground floor or up to the top for the use of the toilet.As it stands a the monent the residents can use the toilet standing up in case of males (to the contrary to what you are saying) but even if they are not able to stand up (not true) they can still use it!. If on the other hand we lose the shower during peak times in the morning people would need to queue to take a shower (no queues are experienced today to take a shower), basically a LOSE – LOSE situation for us. If a toilet of a shower goes down for any reason thre are still another two spares toiilets and showers. If we comply with this request if one bathoorm goes down there id going to be only either one toilet or or one shower for the 7 people. Therefore no matter how you look at it , it is clear that this is a very Detrimental RECCOMMENDATION.
To summarise if the top floor bathroom goes down the residents have two showers and two toilets left. If we follow your reccommendation if the top floor bathroom goes down the resoidents will only have either one toilet and to showers, or one shower and two toilets. If the gorund floor bathrooms goes down the residents will have one toilet and two showers, or one shower and two toilets! As it stand today we are better off becasue in both cases of bathroom failures on top floor or failure on ground floor bathroom the residents have two showers and two toilets left (even if they supposedly cannot stand using the toilet upstairs which is not true anyway).
Additiononally notwithstanding that the bathroom on the first floor is lawful, this judgement is clearly wrong since inspections never pointed this out, and this bathroom was used by hudreds of people over the years without a single issue. It cannot be that depending on who’s subjective judgement we have at a certain point we are made to lose essential utilities in the house, not due to legilation but due to a subjective judgement pof the day. This is th
This is UNACCEPTABLE even as a matter of argument alone, because it is clear it only makes sense if you want to make our house worse rather than better. In this case, on a subjective judgement you are clearly proposing we lose amenities and on top of this as we will see, there is not even any legal requirement for this loss.
Please note that we checked all regulations and we are struggling to find anything that renders this bathroom unlawful.
Please note that this bathroom was assesed by your predecessor Mark Sherwood several times and no issues have been pointed out of course. simply because this bathrom on the first floor is not only perfectly usable in comfrot but it is perfectly lawful. It is absurd that despite the fact that the bathroom is the same a couple of years earlier a new officer applies their judment in a different way and our house gets penalised due to a matter of subjective judjement and NOT based on LAW.
Also in 2018 when we finished the loft conversion building control was involved and they have seen this first floor bathroom and no issues were raised.
We had a good number of similar surveys and no such concerns were raised.
Who knows how many hundreds of people used this bathroom and never this type of issue had ever been raised.
The reason for all the above is becasue this 1st floor bathroom is “de facto” lawful, it can be used with ease and USEFUL.
It seems to us at this point that you base this on your judgement alone (which is subjective). Therefore we would appreciate it if you state (as we asked previously) what UK regulations you are referring to to state this bathroom not to be lawful.
We cannot agree on subjective judgement alone, we need to have evidence that this bathroom is unlawful and we would like to see what makes this bathroom unlawful, we would require to see the relevant law you would be referring to. If so we would require to see an extract of the UK law that applies to this case.
Yoiu state that you cannot stand infornt of both utilities of this bathrooms, this is not true, please note that I also used this bathroom for years and I found it perfectly acceptable.
If this is only based on your judgement I am afraid I will not be in the position to comply with the request to remove the shower or the WC as this would be detrimental to the house.I cannot rely on subjective judgement.
I note you are asking for a copy of building control certificate for this bathroom on the 1st floor, please note that this is considered an existing installation and there is no such requirement. I copy building control myself in this email.
I take this opprtunity to inform you that this bathroom was installed 15 years ago and we do not have a building control certificate to show you because it is an exising installation. Even if this bathroom were not compliant with the relevant legislation (which it is ) this bathroom remains lawful from a building control stand point becasue the statutory time period for enforcement had lapsed. So here you have another answer to one of the questions you asked in your formal request.
I state that unless you show us the legislation that renders this bathroom unlawful we cannot comply with this request in particular. This is becasue this request seems merely subjective and it is at this point clearly detrimental to my house and any future residents.
We will comply only if
1 you can make reference to the relevant legislation and you show us this in a extract of the relevnt legislation.
2 or you have a court order requiring so.
As mentioned will comply with all other requests, however In case you will launch a prosecution for our non compliance with this point alone,( if this request is only based on your judgement) this is very easily defeated in court. We have countless witnesses that will state that they can use this bathroom without any issue. This would be bought in both form of witnesses and sworn witness statements.
The reason for non compliance with this request is that 1 the bathroom is lawful, 2 your solution to a non problem is detrimental to the house.
Therefore if you intend to initite prosecution on our non compliance with this point alone please be clear and we will immediatelly start building our defense.
Once again I would like to make clear that as a policcy I comply with every reqeusts from the authorities even those that are a matter of opinion or reccomendation, However in case a request with is based only on opinion and it is clearly detrimental, damaging and nonsensical I cannot comply. In this case indeed I am ready to fight it out in court, this request is too detrimental.
I indeed believe that given the situation any court proceedings would fail since our legal system is still working and still based on clear cut legislation and rules (like the minimum room size standards etc). Especially when it comes to property rights, if property rights were a matter of opinion investments would not be viable anymore.
Second Floor bathroom.
In connection with the second floor bathroom, the period for building control enforcement have expired, This was installed in 2018 and although we cannot find the completion certificate, building control completion certificate for the 2nd floor bathroom was issued directly by lincoln city council. The building control inspector from the council was James Lawton Building Control Officer (james.lawton@lincoln.gov.uk).
I take the opportunity to respond to the last request of your document
I do not own or manage any other property within the Lincoln city council jurisdiction.
So you have three more qustions askerd tere too.