Thank you all for your help, I really do appreciate it. I am definitely guilty of catastrophizing. But I do feel incredibly vulnerable right now.

The situation is this. I have a flat in a building owned by someone who did not get council approval to say he had built it to the right standards (building control). I contacted the council for advice and was told they can’t certify just one flat. I asked them to come and give me advice on how to make it safer even if I couldn’t have a certificate. This is where it goes wrong. The council official told me to email him saying I had paid my ‘fee’ and he would pop round and have a look. I did this even thought I had not paid a fee because I understood I wasn’t eligible for a certificate but it felt morally acceptable to tell a white lie to get the advice to make the flat safer.

The fire officer came and gave advice and we installed smoke alarms and fire doors as advised. Then the council officer who had asked me to lie, came round and said that he could send me something. He didn’t say what but asked me to email him. I emailed  asking for ‘relevant documentation’ (no reply) and then I emailed asking for a certificate for our flat assuming he meant he could send something official even if it wasn’t a complete certificate.

The council official sent a certificate in my name, saying the WHOLE building was safe. Not just my flat. At first we assumed he had the discretion to sign off the whole building – and perhaps he does – but we became uneasy because he had not inspected the flat upstairs. The flat upstairs was sold and I imagine their solicitor told them everything was in order. Building control certificates are public documents. We contacted the council again to raise the problem and he came to inspect the flat upstairs. It turns out there are fire risks with the flat upstairs. It is rented out.

We told the council officer he has to sort this out – get the fire officer round and clear up the mess. He is super slow at responding.

My worry is simply this – if there is a fire – and someone is hurt – I will be held partly responsible. Because I told I lie, albeit in the attempt to do something good, I feel I have lost credibility. My lie makes it easy for the council official to tell other lies about me and blame me. I have a little evidence in my favour but I am very scared.

My husband is trying to sort this out. He feels it’s clearly the council officials fault and I have nothing to worry about – but I’m not so sure. I have children and apart from the awfulness of potential injuries / death in a fire I don’t want to end up in prison!

I could have kept quiet about the whole thing but I decided it was better to get into trouble doing the right thing that get into trouble trying to cover my back. I am thinking about escalating the whole thing to the council officials boss if he doesn’t respond soon.

What I am asking for from this site – is some compassion. I feel dreadful. My motives were only ever decent but I feel like a complete idiot. I am angry at myself. I feel I wandered into something like a fool that could potentially have terrible consequences. It never occured to me that a council official would do something that was possibly actually professional misconduct in my name.

The only good thing is that the owner of the un-safe flat now knows about it and can help sort it out.

Thank you to everyone who cares enough to take an interest in other people’s problems. Worry is a lonely place to be.