How to Protect the Health of Your Tenants, the Freedom of Your Landlords, and the Reputation of Your Leasing Agency!

Good leasing agents are always working with landlords to promote safety.

This includes everything from security certification to risk assessment surveys.

A UK risk assessment addresses the 29 points of the Home Health and Safety Rating System, HHSRS. This includes security, as well as any means of escape, that is, if a security lock could inadvertently prevent the emergency exit. This is a very limited aspect that this article addresses and, in particular, the legal implications of not communicating this to landlords in connection with an emergency escape from a “Multiple Occupancy House”. Other related aspects will be addressed in later articles.

1. Leasing agents must ensure that landlords provide a safe exit from each rental property in the event of an emergency.

2. The subsequent emergency is too late to address these issues.

3. Any door, from the bedroom to the property’s main exit door (s), must be designed so that keys are not required to escape. Imagine one’s keys in a pocket or purse, but they cannot be found under a bed or chair in a smoky room where alarms go off, housemates yell for help, and emergency vehicle sirens. they sound outside. At that point, tenants must quickly escape without the need to find an exit key to a room!

4. Bedroom door locks are not required, but when installed and keys are provided, the inside of bedroom doors should have a rotary lock. That said, it is a selling point to have locks on the bedrooms that provide additional security and privacy to the tenants.

5. Thumb turns on the inside of main entry doors are essential to allow for keyless exit.

6. However, the easy thumb exit can also result in easy access for thieves. Thumb twists, while enhancing safety, can compromise safety, therefore any risks must be balanced or overcome. Check the insurance implications.

7. A mailbox hood can be fitted to deter thieves from using hanger-like devices to open door locks from outside a property, without keys.

8. All of these matters are addressed in the property risk assessment provided by a competent person.

9. A competent person can be the landlord, if he adequately knows the criteria for a safe house; alternatively, the landlord can appoint and pay an independent advisor for around £ 200.

10. Many agents will organize this on behalf of the owner with no markup for their participation, just like any other security measure. Agents may be willing to sacrifice profits to ensure owner compliance, because it is so important. The implications of failure are unthinkable: death of a tenant, deprivation of liberty of landlord and loss of reputation of an agent.

11. Occasionally there may be more than one lock on a main entry door, with a second 5-lever mortise lock requiring a key to enter and exit. Such a key should not be provided to tenants or merchants, who could use it and inadvertently catch a keyless tenant who is therefore unable to escape an emergency. If the use of the additional lock is mandatory, a rotary lock should be installed, avoiding the need for keys. The complexities of such exceptions only serve to highlight that such hazards are best avoided by always placing thumb twist locks on all those doors.

12. Where a patio door is an essential means of escape, it should be fitted with a rotary lock. In some cases, one bolt will suffice. A bolt on the inside face will allow keyless egress. However, if tenants are likely to use the patio door on the way to a back access shortcut, for example to shops, then they will not be able to re-enter through the patio door if, for example, a coworker floor screws them. This may not be a security issue per se, however it may be a security issue as there is a high probability that tenants will leave this patio door permanently open during the day if they cannot lock it from the outside . This would create a security risk when no one is home. This is why a risk assessment is so important. Only if you think laterally will these risks become apparent. That is why an independent professional advisor is the owner’s best protection against any allegation of negligence or lack of foresight. Few of us have foresight until after an incident when we suddenly ooze with subjective hindsight as to any objective forecast.

13. If you are not a “competent person”, are you willing to train an independent risk assessor?

14. This is a complex issue and about which, in the writer’s experience, most owners and agents seem to be misinformed.

15. The importance of this issue cannot be emphasized enough so that all parties have no doubts about their respective responsibilities: the agent must inform the landlord and, in turn, the landlord must comply. If an agent does not fulfill its duty to communicate the need for specific security, even when the owner client is unwilling to comply, paradoxically, the owner client will be the first to sue the agent alleging negligence.

16. A property risk assessment covers all aspects of security. There are many risks, but only one property risk assessment. There are many certificates required as part of the same single property risk assessment.

17. Conducting this property risk assessment is cost effective as it can obviate the need for a separate fire safety risk assessment as fire safety is included in the overall property risk assessment. Confused? Keep reading.

18. A fire certificate is an additional requirement and is performed by a qualified electrician to test the electrical system on the property and minimize the risk of fire from electrical defects, but this is not a fire risk assessment, nor is it an assessment! property risk! The property risk assessor does not perform the fire certificate, but will require viewing to recognize that it exists before including details of this in the survey as part of the property risk assessment.

19. Additionally, a Portable Appliance Test PAT is required to test appliances plugged into outlets that are not actually part of the property. Vacuums and washing machines are not part of a property, but represent typical high-risk appliances due to bending or stretching of cables and damage to insulation.

20. Any general property risk assessment will never be complete without all relevant certifications demonstrating the security of the property. The law makes it a crime not to provide a gas safety certificate on a rented property.

21. The law also makes it a crime to market a property before obtaining a valid EPC.

22. The law does not make it a crime not to provide most security certificates … until after: an incident, allegation or challenge regarding security. At that point, it can become a crime to have failed to meet the need to ensure that a home is safe. Failure is the point where most issues first arise, for example after a fire.

23. In the absence of certification, the home could simply appear safe. Landlords go to jail for retrospective failure to provide safe housing, for example: Section 11 of the Housing Act of 1985; 2006 Multiple Occupancy Housing Management Regulations (England); The Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994.

24. The infraction does not have to be simply the absence of certification, no, it is more important the absence of evidence that shows that the house was safe before any incident, inspection, etc. The problem for homeowners is that they cannot predict when an incident might occur, only that, statistically, sooner or later, it probably will. At that time, no owner regrets or counts the cost of compliance. They just sigh in relief knowing that they did everything that could reasonably be expected under all circumstances – Your Honor.

25. All real estate investors take calculated and acceptable risks. However, any owner who successfully rents a property would not knowingly put everything in jeopardy, including the lives of his tenants, let alone his own livelihood, if he knew that the price could one day be the downfall.

26. It is the job of leasing agents to be unpopular, to tell landlords what they initially do not want to hear, who, listening and finally realizing the implications of default, cannot finally wait to protect themselves against now apparent risks.