Intercoms near you

Audio-only systems are the oldest and the most forgiving: a two-wire pair up the riser, a handset in each flat, and very little to go wrong that cannot be fixed at the panel. Video adds a screen and needs more cable, which in an older conversion is exactly the constraint that decides the price — pulling new cable through a riser in an occupied block is the job, and the panel is an accessory to it.

IP systems put the panel and the flats on a network, which allows calls to be answered on a phone, remote release, and integration with access control. They also introduce the questions that come with anything networked: who administers it, what happens if the internet fails, and whether residents are being asked to install an app on a personal phone in order to answer their own front door.

Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 limits the relevant contributions of tenants to qualifying works where the relevant costs exceed an appropriate amount set by regulations, unless the consultation requirements have been either complied with or dispensed with by the appropriate tribunal. Replacing a communal door entry system is qualifying works on the building, and on most blocks the cost divided among the flats clears the threshold comfortably.

That threshold is set by regulation 6 of the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003, which provides that for the purposes of section 20(3) the appropriate amount is an amount which results in the relevant contribution of any tenant being more than £250. Regulation 6 of the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (Wales) Regulations 2004 is in the same terms. The figure is per tenant, not per building, which is why it is reached so easily: a modest system across eight flats can put every leaseholder over £250.

For a leaseholder, the practical effect is that you are entitled to be consulted before the work, to make observations, and in many cases to nominate a contractor. For a freeholder or managing agent, the effect is that skipping consultation caps what you can recover at £250 per tenant unless the tribunal dispenses with the requirements. Section 20 extends to England and Wales. A long-term monitoring or maintenance agreement attached to the system can be a qualifying long term agreement with its own consultation route, so ask about that before signing one.

Scottish tenements do not work this way at all. Schedule 1 to the Tenements (Scotland) Act 2004 contains the Tenement Management Scheme, which applies where the title deeds do not provide otherwise, and it gives owners a decision-making procedure rather than a landlord a consultation duty. A scheme decision is made by majority vote of the votes allocated, with one vote per flat, and owners who will not bear any of the cost of a particular decision may be excluded from voting on it.

The procedure is deliberately light. Owners may either hold a meeting, on not less than forty-eight hours' notice, or consult each other individually, and absent owners must be notified of the decision. There is a protection for those carrying the bulk of the cost: an owner liable for seventy-five per cent or more of the cost of a maintenance decision, who voted against it, may annul it by written notice within twenty-one days.

Cost sharing follows the scheme too. Costs relating to common property are divided according to ownership shares, and for other scheme property the costs are split by floor area where the largest flat is more than one and a half times the size of the smallest, and equally otherwise. Northern Ireland has its own leasehold and management law again. If your building is not in England or Wales, do not rely on the section 20 route described above — find out which regime governs your building first.

A door entry system controls a communal entrance, and communal entrances in buildings containing two or more dwellings sit inside the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 rather than outside it. Article 14 requires that emergency doors must not be so locked or fastened that they cannot be easily and immediately opened by any person who may require to use them in an emergency, and that they open in the direction of escape. That is why the standard arrangement controls entry and leaves exit free, and why a release button inside the entrance lobby is not an optional extra.

The Order applies in England and Wales, and the responsible person for the common parts — normally the landlord, freeholder or managing agent — has to be satisfied with the arrangement. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own fire safety legislation. Whichever country you are in, the question to put to an installer in writing is simple: with the power off and the panel dead, how does somebody get out of the building, and how do the fire service get in.

A video entry panel at a shared entrance sees residents, visitors, delivery drivers and passers-by, and if it stores images it is processing other people's personal data. That is not a reason to avoid video entry, which is one of the more useful safety improvements available to a block; it is a reason to decide, before installation, whether the panel records at all, how long anything is kept, who can view it and who is accountable for it. The detailed duties that apply to home cameras filming past a boundary are set out in the security cameras guide and apply here in the same way.

Two decisions are worth making explicitly. If the system can send a snapshot or a live view to residents' phones, work out who that is shared with and whether images end up on personal devices indefinitely. And if it records, the person responsible for the common parts should be the one accountable for the footage, not whichever leaseholder happens to hold the login.

The order matters more than in most jobs, because every flat needs access and the front door has to keep working throughout. A good contractor surveys the riser first and establishes what cable exists and whether it can be reused, because that single answer determines whether this is a two-day job or a two-week one. They should then propose a sequence that keeps the entrance secure overnight at every stage.

Access to flats is the usual cause of delay. Agree how residents will be given notice, what happens for those who are out, and who holds the list of which flats are done. Agree too what happens to the old handsets and panel, and who makes good the decoration around them, because a new screen fitted over a differently sized hole is a very visible way to finish a project badly.

Flat count sets the scale and the riser sets the price. Whether existing cable can be reused, how accessible the riser is, how many floors it serves and how much making good is needed at each handset position will move a quotation far more than the choice between audio and video at the panel. Add the entrance door itself, which may need work before any new release hardware will behave, and the access arrangements for getting into every flat. Where the work is being charged through a service charge, the consultation route is part of the programme rather than an afterthought.

LokalMatch is simply the introduction. Set out the building, how many flats and what exists now, once, with your postcode, and door entry installers working in your area get in touch with you. There is no cost to homeowners, and the pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not install or maintain door entry systems, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone who replies — including on the consultation questions, which are for you and your managing agent to resolve.