Brighton and Hove runs additional HMO licensing across the whole city. A smaller shared house, meaning three or four tenants from more than one household sharing facilities, needs a licence before it can be let, on top of mandatory licensing at five tenants. The council is also bringing in and extending selective licensing in several eastern wards, including Whitehawk, East Brighton, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean, Elm Grove and Queen’s Park, where an ordinary private let can need a licence too. The wards, dates and current fees are on Brighton and Hove City Council’s property licensing pages. Confirm which scheme covers your address before you apply, because the boundaries are changing.
A licence is a housing matter. It does not produce the fire risk assessment or sign one off. That duty is separate and it stays with the landlord or agent.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service enforces fire safety law across Brighton and Hove. They can inspect without notice, serve enforcement and prohibition notices, and prosecute. They will not carry out the assessment for you, though they will give advice. When they audit a property they want the written assessment and they want its recommendations actually in place.
The responsible person is whoever controls the premises, usually the landlord or the managing agent.
Regency conversions, basement flats and the Lewes Road student belt
Brighton’s building stock is unusual and it makes the assessments harder. Much of the seafront is Regency and Victorian houses in Kemptown and Brunswick Town, tall and narrow, long ago split into flats and bedsits with the only escape running down through the middle of the building. Below them sit basement and lower ground flats, where the way out is up to the street rather than straight onto it. Inland, the terraces of Hanover and Elm Grove and the student houses along the Lewes Road corridor, around Moulsecoomb and the two universities, are split for sharers. In all of them the assessment turns on the protected staircase, the fire doors and how each flat is separated from the escape. A basement flat with one narrow stair is exactly where a generic report falls down.
If the property is a council or housing association block, start with them, because they may already hold an assessment.
The licence and the assessment are two separate duties
The HMO or selective licence comes from the city council. The fire risk assessment is a duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The licence does not cover the assessment, and the fire duty applies whether or not the property needs a licence. If you let a property, run a business, or manage a building with shared parts, the written assessment has to be kept current.
What a Brighton report should actually name
A report that could have been written for any town is not suitable and sufficient for a converted Regency house or a basement flat. It should say where the alarms and fire doors sit, whether the single staircase stays usable if a fire starts low down in the building, and how a lower ground flat gets its occupants out to the street. For a converted house it should deal with the real layout, not leave “common parts” as a heading with nothing under it.
Checking an assessor in Brighton and Hove
There is no official register of fire risk assessors, in Brighton or anywhere else, so the checking is down to whoever pays the invoice. Ask for qualifications, professional body membership, indemnity insurance and a sample report before you appoint. The full list of questions, and what a good answer sounds like, is on what a fire risk assessment costs.
What it costs in Brighton and Hove
The building sets the price, not the postcode. A small terraced share in Hanover is a morning; a five storey Kemptown conversion of several flats with one staircase is not. Anything over 11 metres brings the fixed fire door checks with it. The national ranges, and what moves a quote inside them, are on what a fire risk assessment costs. Ask for a fixed price against a written description of the property rather than an hourly rate.
Property licensing in Brighton and Hove
My house has three sharers. Do I need a licence?
Across Brighton and Hove a smaller HMO of three or four tenants from more than one household needs an additional licence. Check the council page to confirm the current fee and conditions.
My rental is an ordinary flat in an eastern ward. Does selective licensing apply?
It may. Selective licensing covers ordinary private lets in the designated wards, not only shared houses. Confirm your address is in the scheme on the council page.
Does a licence replace the fire risk assessment?
No. East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service will still expect the written assessment, and the licence does not provide one.
Getting a quote from an assessor covering Brighton and Hove
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Brighton and Hove. Say whether it is a smaller HMO, a converted house of several flats, a basement flat, or a five person HMO.
Not in Brighton? See all the areas we cover.