I have been in contact recently with more than one owner of 2 storey hmo's totaling in excess of 150 houses where they are removing all fire extinguishing equipment as they say it isn't required under guidelines and that its only applicable in 3 storey hmo's which in their own words are now worthless ??

 

comments as always gratefully received

Hi Leighton

Yes, quite a disputed approach. We have written an article about removal of extinguishers a while ago. Rather than copying in the text, here a link

Harry

What guidelines are they talking about most councils use  HOUSING – FIRE SAFETY Guidance on fire safety provisionsfor certain types of existing housing and that says for HMO's page 44 " Fire fighting equipment (see paragraph 25) Fire blanket to be provided in each bedsit with extinguisher on each floor in the common parts recommended" tell more.

It sounds like the HMO's are being risk assessed using the wrong guidelines - extinguishers are indeed not required in common areas of purpose built flats based on the guidelines for these, but HMO's are not usually purpose built and are often converted private dwellings for which the LACORs guides (which are a bit old now) still apply and as Tom quotes from them above they still require fire fighting equipment and most licensing schemes for HMO's still require this.

It sounds like  fact that these are smaller HMO's and under the license threshold is why the enforcing authority hasn't picked up on this and corrected them.