Plymouth requires a mandatory HMO licence for a large shared house, which means five or more tenants from two or more households sharing facilities. The licence lasts up to five years and the initial application fee is £1,097, or £982 for an accredited landlord. The current fee and conditions are on Plymouth City Council’s HMO licence page.
There is also a planning rule that catches out landlords in the student areas. An Article 4 Direction has been in force since 14 September 2012, and it means you need planning permission to turn a family home into a smaller HMO in a long list of neighbourhoods, including Mutley and Greenbank, the City Centre, Peverell, Stoke and Stonehouse, and Lipson and Laira. That is a planning matter. It does not write the fire risk assessment, which is a separate legal duty under fire safety law.
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service is the enforcing authority
Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service enforces fire safety law across Plymouth. They can inspect without notice, serve enforcement and prohibition notices, and prosecute. They will not carry out your fire risk assessment, though they will give advice. When they audit a property they want to see the written assessment and check the measures in it are in place.
The responsible person is whoever controls the premises, usually the landlord or agent.
The student belt, naval terraces and blocks
Plymouth’s rented housing is concentrated in Victorian and Edwardian terraces in the student belt around Mutley, Greenbank and North Hill, near the university, split room by room for sharers. The city’s naval history left a lot of older terraced and tenement style housing in Stonehouse and Devonport as well. In houses like these the assessment turns on the fire separation between rooms and floors, the escape past one staircase, and older wiring. Purpose built student blocks and blocks of flats with shared parts are a different job, with a stay put or evacuate decision to get right. A small terraced share and a five storey block are not the same report.
If your building 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 licence comes from Plymouth City Council. The fire risk assessment is a duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Holding the licence does not cover the assessment, and holding planning permission under Article 4 does not either. If you let an HMO, run a business, or manage a building with shared parts, the written assessment has to be kept current.
What a Plymouth report should actually name
A report that could have been written for any city is not suitable and sufficient for a licensed Plymouth HMO or a block. It should say whether the property needs a licence or planning permission, where the storey alarms are, and what happens to the escape if the single staircase is blocked. For a block it should name the fire doors and the floor height, not leave “common parts” as a heading with nothing under it.
Checking an assessor in Plymouth
There is no official register of fire risk assessors, in Plymouth 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 Plymouth
The building sets the price, not the postcode. A three bedroom student house in Mutley is a morning; a block with shared parts and 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.
Bristol is the other South West city on this site: fire risk assessments in Bristol.
HMO licensing and planning in Plymouth
My HMO has four sharers. Do I need a licence?
A mandatory HMO licence starts at five tenants. A four person HMO may not need the licence, but in the Article 4 areas it can still need planning permission, and the fire risk assessment applies either way. Check the council pages for your address.
I have planning permission for the HMO. Is that enough?
No. Article 4 is planning, and the HMO licence is housing. Neither one is the fire risk assessment, which is a separate duty under fire safety law.
Does the licence cover the fire risk assessment?
No. Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service will still expect the written assessment, and the licence does not provide one.
Getting a quote from an assessor covering Plymouth
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Plymouth. Say whether it is a smaller HMO, a five person HMO, or a block with shared parts.
Not in Plymouth? See all the areas we cover.