Amending Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Requirements in England

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Amending Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Requirements in England

For a little while now the government has been making noises about revising the regulations which oblige private sector landlords to have smoke and carbon monoxide alarms in their rental properties. At the moment private landlords have to fit one battery operated smoke alarm per storey and a Carbon Monoxide alarm where there is a solid fuel appliance such as a stove or fire. The draft of the amendment regulations have been published and are intended to come into effect in October.

Note that this does not apply in Wales which has its own smoke and carbon monoxide alarm provisions coming into effect in July as part of the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016.

The main change for private landlords is to up the Carbon Monoxide alarm requirement. CO alarms will now be required where there is any fitted combustion appliance other than a gas cooker. This will mean that gas and oil fired boilers, which did not previously need to have a CO alarm will now need one. In practice, this means that almost all rental properties, other than those that have entirely electric heating, will need a CO alarm of some sort. These CO alarms can be battery operated and do not need to be wired in.

In addition there is a new provision requiring a landlord to repair or replace a non-working smoke or CO alarm ”as soon as reasonably practicable” if a tenant or their representative reports it as not working.

There are very limited transitional provisions. However, all tenancies in place on 1 October 2022 will have to have a CO detector and alarm in place on that date. This will apply to tenancies that are already in place and so landlords and agents will need to take urgent action to ensure that their properties have these alarms in place by then.

Enforcement remains by local authorities serving a remedial notice and then issuing a penalty of up to £5,000 if that is not complied with.

The regulations are also being amended so that their scope is no longer limited to the private rented sector and all social landlords will need to comply as well. The same transitional provisions will apply to social landlords so they will only be obliged to deal with these changes for new tenants rather than engaging in a programme to fit CO and smoke alarms in their entire stock.

Finally, there is now an obligation for the Secretary of State to carry out a publish a periodic review of the regulations. The first one is due before 1 October 2027.

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