Can a local housing authority serve an improvement notice under Section 12 of the Housing Act 2004 in respect of a hazard that may or may not exist? This question was raised in a landlord's recent appeal to the Upper Tribunal (UT).

The landlord had been served with an improvement notice by the local council in respect of a house in multiple occupation (HMO) he owned. The requirements of the notice included work to be carried out on seven fire doors. The council had arranged an inspection by a fire door inspector, who concluded that the doors would provide 30-minute fire resistance but were not certificated to that effect.

The landlord challenged the notice before the First-tier Tribunal (FTT), contending that 30-minute fire resistance was not a requirement for fire doors in lower-risk HMOs. He asserted that the council had failed to justify service of the notice, and suggested that such minor works as were needed could be dealt with informally or by service of a hazard awareness notice.

The FTT found that the fire doors might or might not pose a risk to occupiers of the HMO. It varied the notice, substituting a requirement that the landlord obtain a report from an independent fire risk assessor and take action in accordance with the assessor's findings.

After the landlord appealed to the UT, the council accepted that a local housing authority could only serve an improvement notice if it was satisfied that a hazard existed, and the FTT had not been entitled to vary the notice as it did. The council invited the UT to set aside the FTT's decision but reinstate the original notice on the basis that there was no evidence to challenge it.

The UT observed, however, that the landlord had raised detailed challenges on a number of points. The UT was prepared to set aside the FTT's decision but was not in a position to make a decision of its own. Three years had now passed since the notice was served, and the fire doors required periodic maintenance in any event, with one having recently been replaced. The question of whether the works originally identified by the council's fire door inspector were necessary to rectify a hazard that existed at the time was now almost entirely academic.

The UT noted that as the notice would not become operative unless confirmed on appeal, and neither the landlord nor the council wished the matter to be remitted to the FTT, it would remain inoperative indefinitely.