The Law

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety)Order 2005 is the main legislation that controls fire safety in all premises in England that provide accommodation for paying guests.

The Fire Safety Order applies to all lets that are not let as a principal residence, even if you rent out a room in your premises only once.

The Fire Safety Order introduces a general duty of fire safety care to ensure that anyone staying in your premises is safe from fire. This includes taking steps to reduce the likelihood of fire starting and making sure that, in the event of a fire, people can evacuate to a place of safety.

From 1st October 2023  there will be a legal requirement for all Holiday Lets to have completed a Fire Risk Assessment.

This can be carried out by yourself or a competent individual who can look at the premises in a non biased fashion and give considered advice and make recommendation, where necessary, for improvement.

Fire safety guidelines are in place across the UK to help keep properties and guests safe while holiday letting, which is why it’s so important to know and understand any changes. 

With the government’s upcoming new regulations for fire safety in holiday homes in England, we’ve put together some key information to help make the transition easy.

Full length, written assessments, covering all aspects of fire risk, will become a legal requirement for all properties from the 1st of October 2023.

Additionally, the government has issued new guidance that applies to properties of ‘small paying guest accommodation’. This is defined as:

A single premises of ground floor, or ground and first floor, providing sleeping accommodation for a maximum of 10 persons, with no more than four bedrooms on the first floor…’