Legal requirements that Landlords who let property need to be aware of

In the UK, there is a big industry for house letting. People sometimes use this as a primary source of income and could open up their own company doing this full time or others could have a secondary home to let for that extra bit of cash.  This could also be a good investment long term as property prices on the whole generally rise throughout the years. With this investment comes responsibility and if you let the property out there will be legal requirements that you will require to follow.  If you do not do this, then you could find yourself in court.  Whether or not you have understood the laws is not a defence and the judge will not sympathise with ignorance to the law.  Here are a few things that you need to ensure you are on top of.

 

Fire Assessments

Whether you need a fire risk assessment will be dependent on the type of property that you are letting out.  It is a legal requirement for all “non-domestic” properties or if you are an employer with more than 5 employees.  Simply having the fire risk assessment is also not enough for you to actually comply with the law.  The risk assessment will give scoring and recommendations in order to prevent fire or on how to deal with a fire if it occurs.  You will need to take those preventative actions as per the assessment outcome to comply with the law.  This could actually include infrastructure changes or be as simple as putting a fire extinguisher within the property.  Fire risk assessment Manchester area do not only cover this in the northern part in the UK but travel the length and breadth of the country supporting this activity.  It is not up to the people within the building to ensure the compliance to this but the property owners.  Not having this in place robustly could also invalidate the insurance policy.

 

PAT Testing

Electrical safety is of paramount importance and is the cause of many fires or electric shocks.  The lack of preventative measures taken in this respect to this is something that if not complied to, could be significant.  There is no legal requirement for PAT testing (Portable Appliance Testing) to be completed, however, depending on the use of your property and the insurance policy you have connected to it, it could be mandated on this.  As such, if not complied to it would invalidate your insurance policy in totality.  Carrying this out is not laborious and usually involves the electrician or equivalent coming to the property on an annual basis and checking these appliances and keeping a register.  Any faulty equipment will either be removed or repaired.  Stickers will be placed on these also to indicate the test has been completed.

 

Summary

Whether you rent out property for domestic or commercial use, there will be different regulations connected to these.  Make sure you keep on top of these to avoid invalidation of your insurance policies or even a day in court.

 

 

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