HMO fire risk assessment from £99

Any property occupied by three or more people forming more than one household with shared facilities is an HMO, and its shared areas fall under the Fire Safety Order. Licensable HMOs — generally five or more occupants — will almost always be asked for the assessment by the licensing team, and selective licensing schemes in many London boroughs extend that further.

As the landlord of an HMO you are the responsible person for the shared parts of the property under the Fire Safety Order, in addition to your separate duties under the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006, which specifically require you to ensure adequate fire precautions are maintained. Where a property requires mandatory or additional licensing under the Housing Act 2004, the local authority will assess the fire precautions as part of granting or renewing the licence, and can attach conditions or refuse the licence if precautions are inadequate. Operating a licensable HMO without a licence, or with one that has expired, is a criminal offence carrying substantial fines.

HMO failures are usually mundane and cheap to fix if they are found early: a missing self-closer, a wedged fire door, an interlinked alarm on the wrong grade, or a lock that needs a key from the inside.

Across the HMOs we assess, the most common issues are self-closers that tenants have unscrewed or wedged because a door bangs shut too hard, kitchens with cooking facilities positioned too close to the only escape route, and alarm systems installed to a lower grade or category than the property's layout actually requires — often because the system was fitted before a loft conversion or extra letting room changed the building's risk profile. Locks fitted with a key-operated deadlock on the final exit, rather than a thumb-turn, is another recurring and easily overlooked failure that would trap occupants trying to escape in the dark.

Most HMOs can be surveyed within a few working days of enquiry, and we prioritise bookings against licence application and renewal deadlines where you tell us the date in advance. The site visit itself typically takes 30 to 90 minutes depending on the number of storeys and lettable rooms. The written, licence-ready report is issued within 24 hours of the visit, giving you time to instruct any works and still meet the council's deadline.

Price is driven mainly by the number of storeys and the number of lettable rooms, since both affect escape route length and alarm system requirements. A small two-storey HMO with four rooms is priced differently to a converted five-storey property with ten rooms and a basement. Portfolio landlords with several HMOs across London benefit from volume pricing and a single point of contact for scheduling.

Beyond doors and alarms, we frequently find storage — bikes, suitcases, recycling — left in hallways and stairwells that narrow the escape route below an acceptable width, extension leads and portable heaters used as a permanent substitute for inadequate heating, and converted loft rooms let as bedrooms without the protected route or alarm coverage that an additional storey requires. Landlords who have not updated the fire precautions since a change in occupancy — for example, moving from a family let to individual room lets — are particularly likely to be non-compliant without realising it.

Make sure the assessor can access every room, including any locked storage, loft space and the garden or yard if it forms part of an escape route. Have your alarm system's installation and last service certificate to hand if you have one, along with any electrical (EICR) and gas safety certificates, since these help the assessor cross-check what's actually installed against what should be there for the property's layout.

Licensing officers see hundreds of assessments and reject the vague ones. Our reports name the specific standard applied, record the alarm grade and category, and give the landlord a dated action plan — which is exactly what the officer needs to sign it off without a second round of correspondence.

You receive a report you can submit directly with your licence application or renewal, together with a prioritised, costed action plan for anything that needs putting right. Where the council queries a specific point, we can respond directly to clarify the standard applied, and we're available to reassess once remedial works are complete if the licensing team asks for confirmation.