Front door legalities

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Pete
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So, here's a random one.

I live in a building that happens to have an unusual street number. Let's say my address is 10A Station Road. To emphasise, the entire building is 10A, it then has flat numbers.

Now when the place was built in the 1920s, the style was to call such buildings as number and a half. So it was 10½ Station Road. At some point it would appear this has changed to using an A.

However, in a recent bit of rage cleaning where I scrubbed clean a window that hadn't been cleaned for 10 years I noticed that there is the remains of the original 10½ numerals above the door to the street.

I'd love to get this repainted exactly as it was, but would this count as somehow being misleading? Another building a few doors down still retains its original 8½ numbering in the glass panel, although has additional 8A set of little numbers on it's actual door...

Wot shud I du? Pls rspnd.
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steveboswell
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I can't find the letter now with the exact wording, but when my old flat had it's number officially changed, the letter we received from the council just stated that the number must be clearly/prominently displayed on the property.

(National legislation covers this, but I guess your local authority might have their own guidelines, too?)

So I would say as long as you have "10a" on/near the front door, any additional "signage" is acceptable -- just as any business signage would be.
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WillPS
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Agreed, as long as you have something with the official number on I'm sure you'd be fine.

Incidentally, I live on a number 2 of a street, with 2A and 2B to my left as I open my front door and 2C, 2D, 2E and 2F to my right. I really wish the council or whoever divided up the original 2 plot in a more sensible way but most mail still finds its way to us.
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Dr Lobster*
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are you sure it's a legal requirement to display your house number?

i have lived for many years in a house without a number... never had an issue, mind you, the ones either side 101, 105 etc.

i can't imagine any local authorities have the resources to investigate such trifles - the local authority under which i live doesn't even had the resources to investigate statutory nuisances (it's absolutely useless), let alone house numbering irregularities.

i'd just do what you want, and if anybody asks, deny all knowledge and say it was like it when you moved in!
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Pete
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Dr Lobster* wrote: Thu 06 Jun, 2019 22.06 are you sure it's a legal requirement to display your house number?
Oh you don't have to display one. It's more displaying a potentially "inaccurate" one that's the issue.

I think the advice of making sure there's a normal 3D brass letters 10A on the door itself seems sensible. Will have to get the door itself repainted at some point too. Fun.
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thegeek
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Pete wrote: Thu 06 Jun, 2019 23.13 Oh you don't have to display one. It's more displaying a potentially "inaccurate" one that's the issue.
Turns out that, in Scotland at least, you do. Section 97 of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982:
a local authority may [...] require the owner of each of the premises, by notice served on him, to affix or paint that number on his premises so that it is readily legible from the nearest part of the public place giving access to the premises.
So I guess doing what your neighbours have done and having a number on the door that's more prominent than the fanlight would satisfy this.
Anyway, as long as there's not also a 10b and 10c, I can't see how 10½ being above your door world be especially confusing.

In Glasgow, tenements were traditionally numbered with a floor/position designation, so if you were first floor, second from the left, you'd be flat 1/2. Not ½.

[edit] the equivalent legislation in England is the Towns Improvement Clauses Act 1847.
cwathen
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Pete wrote: Thu 06 Jun, 2019 23.13
Dr Lobster* wrote: Thu 06 Jun, 2019 22.06
Oh you don't have to display one. It's more displaying a potentially "inaccurate" one that's the issue.
There is a road I know of in Plymouth which has several terraces of houses on it which were built at different times and originally all had separate names and therefore were separately numbered. Then at some point the terrace names were removed and all houses on the road were renumbered in one sequence along with the road name. As well as some of the original terrace name street signs surviving, there are also still some houses displaying the original numbers on the fanlight as well as the current ones on the door.

As has already been said, even if you are technically not complying with a legal obligation a local authority with the time and resources to pursue this must have it's funding sorted and it's house in order to an extent I have never seen in any place I've ever lived!
scottishtv
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thegeek wrote: Fri 07 Jun, 2019 06.49In Glasgow, tenements were traditionally numbered with a floor/position designation, so if you were first floor, second from the left, you'd be flat 1/2. Not ½.
In Edinburgh, this is still the case and the council uses this system for identifying properties for council tax, parking permits etc and registering to vote, so for a typical tenement building with three flats on each floor the flats are numbered GF1, GF2, GF3, 1F1, 1F2, 1F3 etc. A typical address being: "1F1, 10 Morningfield Place" - which some also write "10(1F1) Morningfield Place".

The Royal Mail prefers the usual <building number>/<flat number> so the above flat would also be "10/4 Morningfield Place" for most companies/utilities, but the old style persists inconsistently. I lived in a flat once numbered PF1, which stood for "Pavement Floor, Flat 1" and this was on the Postcode Address File. It's a bit of nightmare, as illustrated by the first comment here.
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Pete
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scottishtv wrote: Sat 08 Jun, 2019 19.25
thegeek wrote: Fri 07 Jun, 2019 06.49In Glasgow, tenements were traditionally numbered with a floor/position designation, so if you were first floor, second from the left, you'd be flat 1/2. Not ½.
In Edinburgh, this is still the case and the council uses this system for identifying properties for council tax, parking permits etc and registering to vote, so for a typical tenement building with three flats on each floor the flats are numbered GF1, GF2, GF3, 1F1, 1F2, 1F3 etc. A typical address being: "1F1, 10 Morningfield Place" - which some also write "10(1F1) Morningfield Place".

The Royal Mail prefers the usual <building number>/<flat number> so the above flat would also be "10/4 Morningfield Place" for most companies/utilities, but the old style persists inconsistently. I lived in a flat once numbered PF1, which stood for "Pavement Floor, Flat 1" and this was on the Postcode Address File. It's a bit of nightmare, as illustrated by the first comment here.
A, B, C - Postcode file
1/1, 1/2, 2/1 - Council
1/L, 1/R, 2/L - Landlord
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scottishtv
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Urrgh. The disorder of it all. At one point, my neighbour and I actually thought we held the title deeds to each other's properties.
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