Important update to the Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm Regulations 2015

Published 8th December, 2015

Recent changes to legislation regarding Smoke Alarms and Carbon Monoxide alarms within the private rental sector means additional work load for landlords and contractors!

As a landlord or tenant you will probably have heard about the recent changes to legislation, affecting most privately rented properties across the UK.

The Smoke & Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015

The new legislation came into effect on the 1st October 2015.  Landlords are now responsible for ensuring that a smoke alarm is fitted on each floor of their property where a room is used wholly or partly as living accommodation. Landlords are also responsible for installing a carbon monoxide alarm in any room where solid fuel is burnt including coal, wood, bio mass and as well as open fires. The legislation comes as part of an effort to increase fire and carbon monoxide safety across the whole of the UK. 

This does not come as a surprise to us as annual gas safety inspections are already a legal requirement along with a duty of care to ensure that the property, including electrics are deemed safe for purpose. 

The rental team has worked hard to help our landlords meet their new responsibilities and ensure the safety of our tenants. As you can imagine this has taken quite some time to implement across all of our managed properties!

Luckily most tenants have been very helpful and responded immediately to our requests to test alarms and advise us if alarms need fitting or replacing.  We now also ensure we test alarms at the commencement of any new tenancy.

One of our many trusted contractors has also been kept particularly busy during this period installing and testing new alarms which have been supplied by Hinckley Bosworth Borough Council.  

Whilst most properties had a least one working smoke alarm fitted we have been surprised at the amount of properties that did not previously have two smoke alarms installed!