Last year we reported on a grim case in Leeds where the tenant (who was also an employee of the landlord) of a basement flat, with no planning permission, died of his injuries 10 days after a fire broke out in his home. Among the other serious deficiencies at the property that increased the probability of death if a fire started, there were no smoke detectors or fire alarms.

The landlord was eventually sentenced to 13 months in prison and it is worth quoting the judge in the case here: “Nobody should have been living there. It was unsuitable for human habitation. You were aware of your obligations as a professional landlord. This was a flagrant disregard and you sought to minimise your responsibility. It was cost cutting and left a longstanding flaw in the premises which had fatal consequences.”

That distressing case was of the most extreme type. However, given that there were nearly 600,000 domestic residential fire incidents in England last year and the 2021 English Private Landlords Survey (carried out on behalf of government) estimated that compliance with fire safety rules regarding smoke detectors and fire alarms was around 90%, that still leaves too large a 10% who aren’t fulfilling their obligations.

Since 2015, and with amendments in 2022 (Smoke and Carbon Monoxide (England) regulations 2022), it has been a requirement to install carbon monoxide (CO) detectors in PRS properties in any room where a ‘fixed combustion appliance’ (thus including boilers) other than a cooker is in place. Despite this requirement, the landlord survey estimated that compliance with this rule reached only 70% (as of 2021).

During property licensing inspections carried out by Home Safe on behalf of our Local Authority partners, we have found that it isn’t just a question of a lack of alarms or detectors, it’s also a lack of awareness of legal obligations or poor landlord engagement with the property that are also issues.

For example, some landlords who installed smoke alarms didn’t, at some point later, return to check whether the alarms were still functioning properly and so weren’t aware that they had stopped working. This was a consequence of either not bothering to carry out regular periodic landlord property inspections or the landlord not carrying out inspections in a professional or competent manner. This is also why licensing conditions include requirements for landlords to carry out regular inspections themselves or via their agent (and be able, on request, to evidence such), irrespective of any licensing scheme inspection programme.

In other examples highlighted by Home Safe inspections, landlords, when informed about a missing smoke alarm or CO detector, stated that they gave the tenant the alarms or detectors to install themselves - despite the obligation being on the landlord to correctly position any alarms or detectors that must be installed. Others have said that a tenant has taken out the alarm batteries to insert into a child’s toy. This is despite sealed unit alarms being so widely and cheaply available that the ability to tamper with batteries in this manner shouldn’t today be an issue in any PRS property and why licence conditions insist on the installation of sealed unit alarms of a specific British Standard.

As the Leeds case highlighted above shows, the consequences of having no alarms or detectors installed, or having them installed but incorrectly positioned, can have tragic and fatal consequences. Only by going through the front door during a property licensing inspection, can the Local Authority help ensure that the risk to the occupants is mitigated and landlords are shown to be complying with their fire safety or prevention of CO poisoning obligations to their tenants.