If you let property in West Sussex or anywhere in England, October 2023 brought a change you cannot ignore. The Building Safety Act 2022 short term lets reforms, delivered through Section 156, amended the Fire Safety Order and tightened what every holiday let owner has to do. The headline is simple: your fire risk assessment must now be written down in full.
What the Building Safety Act 2022 changed
Before October 2023, smaller operations could sometimes rely on an informal or unrecorded assessment. Section 156 removed that. Every Responsible Person must now record their fire risk assessment and their fire safety arrangements in full, regardless of the size or type of business.
West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service and brigades across the country flagged that the change would affect small businesses, holiday lets and small blocks of flats the most, precisely because these owners now carry recording duties they may not have realised applied to them.
The information duty for flats
There is a second strand worth knowing. In residential buildings with two or more domestic premises, residents must be provided with information on the fire risks and the fire safety measures in place. If your let is a flat in a converted house or a block, this can affect you, so check how it interacts with the responsible person duties for the wider building and who holds them.
Why the recording duty matters
The recording requirement is not bureaucracy for its own sake. A written assessment is your evidence of compliance if the fire service inspects, and it forces a proper, structured look at your property rather than a quick glance round. It also makes the annual review far easier, because you have a documented baseline to compare against.
What the record should contain
A full record covers the significant findings of the assessment, the people identified as being especially at risk, and the actions you have taken or plan to take. The guidance suggests it should also note who carried out the assessment. It is the difference between “I had a look and it seemed fine” and a defensible document that stands up to scrutiny.
What you need to do now
If you have not produced a written assessment since October 2023, you are not compliant, even if your property is genuinely low risk. Work through the government’s free five-step checklist, or commission a competent assessor, and make sure the result is recorded and kept under review. The Home Office guide, Making your small paying-guest-accommodation safe from fire, was updated to reflect these changes and is the best starting point.
What the change means day to day
For most holiday let owners the practical effect is simple: the informal once-over is no longer enough. Your assessment has to be written down in full and kept where you can produce it. The change also introduced a duty in buildings with two or more sets of domestic premises to give residents clear fire safety information, which can apply if you let a flat in a converted house. If you are unsure whether your building falls into that category, a competent assessor can tell you quickly. Keeping a dated copy in your guest information pack is a tidy way to show compliance, and the gov.uk responsibilities page was updated to match the post-2023 position.
If you have altered the property since your last assessment, treat that as the trigger to redo it under the current rules, rather than relying on a version that predates October 2023.
Get the right advice for your property
Need a written assessment that meets the new rules? For advice tailored to your property from a competent professional, speak to Jamie at ESI: Fire Safety on 01276 300 351.
