HMO Fire regulations

Rory1471

Hi, I'm considering renting out four bedroomed semi-detached house I own instead of selling, I would therefore be looking at having four tenants in the household (not related - most likely students). I presume this would class the house as an HMO? My question is what regulations would I be looking at having to put in place for the house? Would I have to put fire doors or any specific alarm systems in place before letting it out?

Thanks, any help would be greatly appreciated.

poppysarah

Building control officer at the local council will be able to point you in the right direction

lynzpower

It would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to rent the whole house out to one household ( ie a family) - whats the reason you are not considering this?

Rory1471

lynzpower wrote: »

It would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to rent the whole house out to one household ( ie a family) - whats the reason you are not considering this?

It's a very studenty area so I'd be pretty much guaranteed a steady flow of tenants. For what reason in particular would it be cheaper to rent to a family?

lynzpower

families generally have some level of reliable income- students dont.

I know from bitter experience that I struggled to pay my rent, as did pretty much all the other students I knew. food vs rent was a normal everyday query for all of us.

once you start getting in to the realms of HMO you are talking about fire alarm systems ( few K) maintainence of those said systems ( is it monthly call out? you will have to pay for this too, and in my experinece call outs are around the 200 quid mark) if your LA wants monthly inspections of fire systems that is a given cost. Your LA may insist if its a HMO in order to license it fire doors need to be fitted ( can be around 500 quid each depends on the property) although some will be happy that the exits only comply. Some LAs require a handbasin in each room. They also require a certain amount of kitchen space per person ( again this varies between authorities although I have seen half a meter quoted.

If you are renting to only one household, these rules do not apply.

where abouts are you in the UK. Student rentals vary between cities- I was in Newcastle and the letting year ran from September to July- so would naturally leave a void. London I believe bases on retainers - ie less rent in the summer but students must pay it.

Im a few yerars out of uni myself, so not too sure how current this is.

It totally does depend on where you are in the UK.

TJ27

An awful lot of the fire safety stuff will apply whether the house is an HMO or not. It can be rated under the HHSRS and fire is a specific hazard. So one way or another you will be needing an alarm, fire doors, etc.

However, the requirements are not as onerous as some people think. This is especially true for a two storey house with four students. There is new guidance in place, which is risk based but if anything is much easier to comply with that the old standards. Unfortunately it takes a bit of reading. It can be downloaded, for free, halfway down this page:

http://www.lacors.gov.uk/lacors/ContentDetails.aspx?id=19843

Even if the house is licensable, it's unlikely to make a huge difference to what is required. You might have to fit a separate toilet and make sure that certain other facilities are provided but the fire requirements aren't all that different. There would be a feee, in the region of £500 but the licence would last for five years. With four ocupants and 2 storeys it won't be mandatory licensable but your council may operate some sort of additional or selective scheme.

Paley71

The house next door to me is a three bed semi, it's not considered HMO and they have nine unrelated tenants, according to the council it's not overcrowded.

Rory1471

I'm guessing fire doors etc are pretty expensive? What would the penalties be like if I didn't get them installed?

TJ27

Rory1471 wrote: »

I'm guessing fire doors etc are pretty expensive? What would the penalties be like if I didn't get them installed?

Death perhaps? Not yours though.

TJ27

Plus of course, on top of the penalties, you'd still have to do the work.

So option one is to do the work. Option two is to be prosecuted, get a fine (whatever it is), get a criminal record, and still do the work. It's a no brainer even if the fine is a tenner isn't it?

Notlob

You likely have a non licence HMO and need to look at fire doors, fire blankets and smoke detectors. Talk to the council and they will provide guidance. Each council might interpret the law in different ways.

Not aware of the need to provide this stuff for non HMO properties.

Yes, individual rooms will achieve higher rents than let to a family, but you must ask yourself is it worth the hassle, greater risk of non payment and more w&t.

Notlob