Fire regulations for holiday lets

Fire safety matters. Taking care to understand the risk that fire represents in your property enables you to consider and implement the right fire safety arrangements. Practical management of fire safety with good processes and control measures is essential to ensure fire prevention. Most fires are preventable and as long as you can demonstrate that your fire safety management steps meet the HSE fire safety recommendations, they are likely to be acceptable.

Fire risk assessment for holiday lets

A fire risk assessment should be the foundation for all fire prevention at your holiday property. We ask all owners to conduct a professional fire risk assessment which has to be in place prior to letting. A fire risk assessment is an organised review of your holiday home, the activities carried out, and the prospect that a fire could start causing harm to those in and around the premises. Not only is it a legal requirement of all holiday home owners, it ensures that you provide a duty of care to keep your guests safe. We recommend all owners should also consider installing other fire safety measures such as emergency lighting, fire extinguishers and a fire blanket, all of which require regular checks and testing. If you have an open fire or log burner, it is best practice and often a requirement of insurance to have the chimney swept once a year. Be sure to leave clear instructions for your guests on how to safely use the fire. HMRC website has guidance about completing a fire risk assessment and we can provide you with our professional Fire Risk Assessor’s contact details.

Smoke detectors

All premises used as self-catering holiday lets require an interlinked automatic detection and fire warning system. These must be tested regularly and must be loud enough to wake anyone sleeping in the property. This will be advised in your professional Fire Risk Assessment.

Fire safety of furniture and fittings

While self-catering holiday lets are considered a low risk, you still need to make sure your furniture and furnishings comply with commercial fire safety standards. The law requires you to prove that any of the furniture and fittings supplied in the property comply with the standards set out in the Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988. These regulations are in place to make sure that any upholstered furniture, supplied for domestic use, has a certain level of fire resistance. If you are letting out your holiday cottage, the regulations apply to every upholstered item in the property, and it is required that they are suitably labelled.

Gas safety regulations

If your holiday let contains any gas appliances (either mains gas or LPG gas), it’s your legal obligation to ensure that all appliances are correctly installed, well-maintained by certified Gas Safe engineers, checked on an annual basis and that the correct alarms are fitted in the event anything does go wrong. It is also your responsibility to ensure that appliances, their fittings, flues and chimney are maintained too. As a holiday let owner, you must ensure gas appliances are checked annually and that a CP12 certificate (landlord’s gas safety certificate) is provided for the property, covering all relevant appliances. CP12 checks should only be conducted by a registered Gas Safe engineer who must provide a copy to you. We will ask you to provide a copy of this to us annually.

Carbon monoxide warning system

Where a property has a gas appliance, the HSE strongly recommends the use of carbon monoxide (CO) alarms as a useful precaution. This gives guests advanced warning of carbon monoxide in the property. Make sure to check the devices regularly and provide your guests with instructions on how to operate all gas appliances safely.

Electrical safety

Electrical safety is considered critical in reducing the risk of fires, as electrical fires are the most common cause of fires in the home. Electrical equipment and wires deteriorate with use and time, and it is important to ensure your guests are safe during their stay. Since June 2020, regulations now require landlords to get any electrical appliances and installations checked and tested by a qualified electrician at least once every five years. Your guests must also be able to see a copy of your Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR), and you should also be able to provide a copy to your local authority if they wish. We also request to hold a copy of your EICR on file. In addition to the EICR, we recommend a qualified electrician test all appliances on a yearly basis, known as PAT testing. If your property has features such as a swimming pool or hot tub then these will also need to have an annual check by a qualified electrician. Holiday let owners must be able to prove that all electrical equipment is in a reasonable state of repair and in proper working condition. Any faulty electrical equipment must be removed from your property.

TV Licence

If you have a device available in any short-stay accommodation to overnight visitors, where they are able to watch or stream live TV, you will need a TV licence. This applies to any device including a TV, desktop computer, laptop, mobile phone, tablet, games console, digital box or DVD/VHS recorder.

You will need to be covered if:

• Guests watch or record programmes as they’re being shown on TV, on any channel

• Guests can watch or stream programmes live on an online TV service (such as ITV Hub, All 4, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, Sky Go, etc.)

• They’re able to download or watch any BBC programmes on BBC iPlayer

You don’t need a TV Licence if guests are watching:

• On demand or catch-up programs on services other than BBC iPlayer or

• watching S4C TV on demand

• Streaming, renting or buying movies from providers like Sky, Virgin Media, BT TV, Netflix or Amazon

Holiday let insurance

Holiday let insurance is a specialist form of cover that is required for holiday let properties. Having insurance is meant to protect you and your holiday let, so it is vital to know what it should cover and that you have the right policy in place. It’s important to note that your holiday cottage must have adequate building and contents insurance. This is to cover against damage, accidents, and loss of earnings.

A holiday let insurance safeguards you from many areas that a normal home insurance policy wouldn’t.