One place to find the legislation, government guidance, HMO-specific requirements, British Standards and local authority rules behind every fire risk assessment — kept in plain English, with links straight back to the official source.
The Fire Safety Order, Fire Safety Act and Housing Act — who's responsible, and for what.
02Official GOV.UK risk assessment guides, including sleeping accommodation.
03LACORS Housing – Fire Safety and other HMO-focused standards.
04BS 5839, BS 5306, BS 8214 and other referenced standards.
05Enter a postcode to find the responsible local authority.
Guidance changes. Always check the current legislation, government guidance and requirements of the local authority responsible for the property. This information is provided to support assessment and compliance and does not replace professional judgement or competent fire risk assessment.
🔔 Stay informed
Alerts about new or amended fire safety legislation and guidance will appear here as soon as they're confirmed.
We're building an automated watch on GOV.UK, legislation.gov.uk and local authority sources so this section can flag exactly what's changed, whether it affects your properties, and what to do next — reviewed and approved before anything is published here. Until then, please rely on the official sources linked throughout this page.
01 — Legislation
The core legal framework that creates fire safety duties for HMOs and other residential property.
02 — Government Guidance
Official, non-statutory guidance on how to meet the duties set out above.
03 — HMO-Specific Guidance
Guidance written specifically for shared and multi-occupied housing.
The HMO benchmark
Originally published in 2008 and still the guidance most local housing authorities and fire & rescue services use as the benchmark for fire safety in HMOs and shared housing. It sets out a risk-based approach across:
LACORS is not an active organisation — its functions were absorbed elsewhere in 2011 — so its fire safety guidance is mirrored by many local authorities. Always check whether your local authority has published its own HMO fire safety standard on top of LACORS (see Local Requirements below).
04 — British Standards
British Standards aren't free to download, but they're frequently referenced by FRAs, competent persons and building control. The ones assessors run into most often:
05 — Local Requirements
HMO licensing schemes, extra fire safety conditions and enforcement priorities vary by local authority. Enter a postcode to find the council responsible for a property.
We use the free, public postcodes.io service to identify the local authority — no property details are stored or sent anywhere else.
📰 Latest news
Once a regulatory change has been reviewed and approved, a plain-English summary will be published here.
This section will fill up automatically once the review-and-approve workflow behind it goes live — every item you see here will have been checked and published on purpose, not auto-posted from a raw feed.
