19th
Mar 2021
The Home Office has just announced that landlords and letting agents of HMOs could be slapped with unlimited fines by not complying with new measures that are being introduced to strengthen fire safety.
Following the government’s Fire Safety Consultation the new measures are part of its response to address the issues that the consultation found.
Although the measures are not applicable for owner homes it is does apply to HMOs and other multi-tenancy premises.
The full details of the new measures will be forthcoming and introduced as part of Building Safety Bill’s legislation in 2022.
The measures will revise the current Fire Safety Order and one of its requirements will be mandatory fire risk assessments to take place in each HMO and multi-tenancy building and to be recorded. It will also make attempts to improve the process of handing over the fire safety information throughout a building’s ‘lifetime’.
Fire Minister Lord Greenhalgh said: “Everyone should be safe in the buildings where they live, stay or work.
“Our new measures will improve fire safety and help save lives, but will also take firm action against those who fail in their duty to keep people safe.”
Roy Wilsher, National Fire Chiefs Council Chair, adds: “We want to see safer buildings for residents and are committed to working constructively with the Home Office and other partners on the Grenfell Tower Inquiry recommendations and other key fire safety policy areas.”
The government states the new measures will:
- Improve the quality of fire risk assessments and competence of those who complete them;
- Ensure vital fire safety information is preserved over the lifespan of all regulated buildings;
- Improve cooperation and coordination amongst people responsible for fire safety and making it easier to identify who they are;
- Strengthen enforcement action, with anyone impersonating or obstructing a fire inspector facing unlimited fines;
- Strengthen guidance issued under the Fire Safety Order so that failure to follow it may be considered in court proceedings as evidence of a breach or of compliance;
- Improve the engagement between Building Control Bodies and Fire Authorities in reviewing plans for building work;
- Require all new flats above 11 metres tall to install premises information boxes.
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