I rent out two flats, a one bed and a three bed, all originally signed off and certified by Building Control.

Additional FD30 Firedoors, Emergency lighting, smoke and heat detection (Grade D), Fire Extinguishers and Fire blanket were installed in each flat, Lacors was followed for the install, and FRA's performed by a competent company.

This was in preparation for the property to be Licenced and run as 2x small HMOs.

However - the flats were never licenced and have been let as single lets.

As single lets - it has become quite disruptive to their quiet enjoyment, with a constant round of Testing and Certifying - with Engineers at regular intervals trudging though the flat.

The FRA judged the Risk as 'Trivial'.

As the properties are not in fact HMOs, all the extra Fire Equipment is not required.

I would like to return the flat to how it would have been, if it had been a single let originally, this will involve removing the emergency Lighting, fire extinguishers, and door closers.

I understand I cannot simply leave Fire Equipment installed if it does not get its periodic service/inspection.

I have spoken to the FRA company about doing this - but they shy away from agreeing that this could be done - however - I feel on the balance - all the unnecessary Fire Safety equipmentis intrusive to the tenants lives.

Each bedroom room will retain a smoke detector, which is over and above what is required, flat doors to communal areas will however remain as FD30 with inspecting interval at every 3 months, and with Fire blanket and heat detector in each kitchen

Interested to know if others on here know of similar circumstances or have experience they can share.

In theory as long as you return it to the original condition as single dwellings with the fire doors as originally required (especially the front doors if to internal common parts) and have the correct minimum type and grade of automatic fire detection for the part of the UK your flat is in then, as they are outside the FSO and only under the Housing Act and subsidiary legislation (such the various UK countries' rental smoke alarm regulations) as you are not making it worse than the original Building Regs approval

@AnthonyB Thank you for the reply.
I should have sought a second or even third opinion on this.

I think in summary then this can be easily stated as, the change in Fire Cover will be from:

1) an Installation that satisfies my local councils HMO Licence conditions
to
2) what my original Building Regs approval specified (as you state above).

The original FRAssessors - implied that where Fire Equipment is installed - it must be serviced, if it is not serviced then it must be removed, even where the equipment itself is not required, no one has yet shown me a piece of legislation that states that.

If it's provided in a premises to which the FSO applies the law clearly states in Article 17 it must be subject to a system of maintenance. If it doesn't apply because its now a private dwelling again it doesn't but from a liability point of view it might be wise to dump it other than the fire blanket

Thank you.
Just re-read some of the FSO guidance, and thank you for the pointer on maintenance:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1541/article/17

If I understand correctly the 'interior' of the flats would not have the FSO apply as they are private dwellings, but any equipment that has ended up fitted inside the private dwelling would still require maintenance, and as you advise 'from a liability point of view' - if not required and not maintained should be removed ... which leads me to Fire Doors, every bedroom door is a fire door (as required if it had become an HMO), and has been maintained to date as such, even though these Fire Doors have not been required for a couple of years. The purpose of removal is to reduce disturbance to tenants whilst maintaining fire standards, but I presume it would be unnecessary to actually remove the Fire Doors themselves, just perhaps the closers ? leaving on the FD30 Handles and Hinges - even though no longer inspected would be acceptable ?

I will be replacing the Fire Extinguishers inside each flat with P50 non maintenance units, once installed I understand these do not require maintenance.

Flat internal doorways (other than toilet/bathroom) have to be fire doors (FD30 and in the old days FD20 when such doors existed) even as single private dwellings, they just do not need self closers.

P50 extinguishers are not maintenance free, that's sales talk - they require annual maintenance, but rather than using an extinguisher service company the owner of the equipment can complete it themselves - https://www.britannia-fire.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/How-to-maintain-the-P50-.pdf

Having internal fire rated doors is not always necessary,

ADB

see paras 3.14 - 3.17 for storeys a maximum of 4.5m

see paras 3.18 - 3.19 for storeys >4.5