Fire Safety For Landlords
You can suffer catastrophic damage from a fire in your property, resulting in uninhabitable properties and expensive, time-consuming repairs resulting in lost rental income. Furthermore, fire poses a serious threat to the safety of your tenants.
The festive season presents a particular time to be particularly vigilant when it comes to fire safety. Increasing use of heating and electrical appliances causes an increase in house fires each year, according to firefighters. Additionally, the combination of alcohol consumption, candles, Christmas trees, fairy lights, and decorations can contribute to the problem.
Landlords must comply with several legal obligations in order to ensure their rental property is safe. Legal action can be taken against you if there is a fire and your accommodation is not fire-safe. The importance of fire safety for landlords cannot be overstated.
Causes of fire
A property’s fire risks include candles, unattended appliances, extension leads that are overused, cigarettes, deep fryers, and portable heaters. There are many fire claims caused by arson and electrical faults, which account for some of the most reported cases. Accidents caused by misuse of equipment or equipment or faulty appliances account for many fires.
Reducing the risk of fire
1. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms
Fire-related deaths in 2018-19 were largely caused by being overcome by gas or smoke. Smoke alarms save lives. The law requires landlords to install smoke alarms on every floor of their rental properties as well as a carbon monoxide alarm in every room containing solid fuel burning appliances. At the start of every new tenancy, landlords should also ensure that alarms are functioning properly and encourage tenants to control them regularly. When inspecting a property, it’s also a good idea to check smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. GOV.UK provides information on smoke and carbon monoxide alarms for landlords.
2 Escape routes
It is the landlord’s responsibility to ensure that tenants have access to an escape route at all times in order to protect themselves. An escape route can be external, for example, a stairway mounted on the wall of a building, or internal, such as a ladder. A fire-resistant floor and wall should be installed on escape routes so they can be used during a fire.
3. Fire-safe furniture
Landlords must provide tenants with fire-resistant furniture and furnishings. If there is a fire-safety symbol on the manufacturer’s label, you can usually find this information. It is best to go above and beyond minimum requirements and make sure all items are meeting high safety standards, except for mattresses, bed bases, pillows, cushions, and bedcovers. Everything the tenant brings inside the property is their own responsibility, not the landlord.
4. Fire extinguishers
It is a good idea to go beyond the minimum requirements if possible when it comes to fire extinguishers in large HMOs. Regardless of the type of property you own, you may wish to provide one. There should be one fire extinguisher per floor and one fire blanket per kitchen in HMOs. It is important to check extinguishers at the start of every tenancy and recheck them periodically during inspections. A fire extinguisher and blanket should be explained to tenants when and how to use them. It is important to use extinguishers according to their intended purpose. It may be useful to add information on the welcome pack you send your tenants when they move in our ARTICLE RE WELCOME PACK
Please note, that Lofti property management software recommends you take precautions with fire safety and recommend these 4 points as prevention methods. Further action can be taken to ensure that fire safety standards are met. We recommend conducting further research on top of this article to cover more angles.
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