As if we weren't busy enough!

October 11, 2015 by Rob Kahl

As if we weren't busy enough!

Our office is always a hive of activity. The girls on the management department are always incredibly busy helping tenants and landlords out with any problems that their properties may have.

So you can imagine, one thing that they really enjoy is a new bit of government legislation that causes them even more work!

The latest one though is a bit more serious and has been given our undivided attention. New regulations have just been brought in that rental properties must have working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. This is something we have been recommending to landlords and tenants for many years and finally it has been made compulsory.

These regulations require landlords to ensure that there are working smoke alarms on every story of any rented property and carbon monoxide alarms in any room with a solid fuel burning appliance. Don’t think you can get away if you have a mains powered smoke alarm either. Did you know that these have an expiry date of only 10 years and any property built after 1992 had to have a mains alarm so these could well be out date and dangerous by now.

This could be seen as another government scheme brought out solely for the purpose of making more work for us, but this is an important one. Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are essential and should always be tested and in working order. The statistics speak for themselves. 40% of fire related deaths occur in properties without a working fire alarm and for the price of a battery or a £20 alarm this is pretty scary.

What it means for us though is that we have to contact all of our landlords and tenants, visit all of our properties, even the ones we have let and don’t manage and ensure that they have working alarms. This is well over 1,000 properties so you can imagine the girls in the management team and maintenance departments are over the moon.

Seriously though this is a vital service, it could prove the difference between life and death and that is before we have even mentioned the possible £30,000 fine for non compliance.

This blog may be of no relevance to you as you are not a landlord or tenant and you think thank heavens I do not have to do anything. But, why not check that your current alarms are working properly or god forbid if you haven’t got any, prompt you into buying them. I hope you never have the call to use them for real but it is better to be safe than sorry.

This article is by Rob Kahl at Scott & Stapleton
http://www.leigh-on-sea.com/scott-stapleton.html