Lease. Cost due to call-out of a security guard.

At the beginning of the lease period, it was explained to the tenant that if the smoke detector went off during cooking, the tenant was to cancel the call-out of a guard from Securitas, go to the fire-alarm system, turn off the alarm and then re-set the system in accordance with the instructions. This was necessary to avoid the tenant’s having to pay “immense costs” for calling out a guard from Securitas. On 13 September the tenant’s smoke detector went off. According to the tenant, it took a long time to turn off the alarms because they started ringing again and again, and therefore it took a long time to re-set the system. A security guard turned up while the tenant was phoning Securitas, and consequently the call-out was registered. After that, the tenant received a charge for the call-out in his on-line bank. The lease between the parties contained detailed instructions about the security system and what to do if the smoke detector went off and there was no fire. It was also stated costs resulting from a call-out would be charged to the tenant at any given time.

The Complaints Committee recalled the provisions of the lease stating that this system was a feature of the building and how to act if it went off, including when it was started by the smoke-detector. The committee considered that the tenant had not followed the instructions in the lease or the guidelines that were hung up in many different places in the premises. The first thing was to cancel response from Securitas, then to turn the alarms off and finally to re-set the system. The committee noted that this must be considered as a natural priority ranking, which the tenant did not observe, which led to the arrival of the security guard.

Conclusion: The tenant was made to pay the cost associated with the call-out of the security guard.