Letting Agent Smoke Alarm Responsibility: Who Is Liable?

The Legal Duty Sits on the Landlord, Not the Agent

Under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended 2022), the statutory duty falls on the "relevant landlord" — defined as the person who holds an interest in the premises and lets them under a specified tenancy. Your letting agent is not the relevant landlord. If your agent fails to fit an alarm, test it on Day One, or respond to a tenant's fault report, the local housing authority may serve a remedial notice on you. A penalty charge of up to £5,000 can follow if you fail to comply with that notice.

This is strict statutory liability. There is no defence of "I hired a professional to handle it." The regulations do not recognise delegation of the duty — only delegation of the task. You can ask your agent to do the work, but you cannot transfer the legal consequence of it not being done.

What a Good Agent Actually Does

A letting agent operating under a fully managed service agreement typically handles alarm compliance as part of check-in and property management. In practice that means:

• Confirming alarms are installed before marketing the property
• Conducting the Day-One test on the morning of the tenancy start date and recording it on the check-in inventory
• Responding to tenant fault reports and arranging repair or replacement
• Tracking alarm expiry dates as part of the property maintenance schedule

The quality of that service varies enormously. Some agents record "alarms present and working" as a single line on a generic inventory form. A more useful compliance record identifies each alarm by location, make, manufacture date, and test result — dated evidence helps show what was installed and tested if a council investigates.

The Inventory Check-In Gap

The check-in inventory is the moment where agent compliance most commonly fails. Market research consistently shows that high-street agents charge £100 to £200 per tenancy check-in, yet their inventory reports often use generic statements without capturing the details that matter: batch numbers, sensor expiry dates, and whether the test was performed on the tenancy start date.

The regulations require that every alarm is checked on the day the tenancy begins. If your agent conducts the check-in a day early — or a day late — you are technically non-compliant. Keep dated evidence of the test so you can show it happened on the required day.

As a self-managing landlord who uses an agent only for tenant-find or rent collection, the Day-One test responsibility falls squarely on you. The agent's role ends when they hand you the tenant's signed agreement; the alarm test is your job from that point.

Selective Licensing and Additional Agent Duties

In areas with selective licensing schemes (Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004), the licence conditions often impose requirements beyond the national alarm regulations. A selective licence may require:

• Interlinked smoke alarms rather than standalone units
• A specific system grade (Grade D1 mains-powered with sealed battery backup)
• Six-monthly alarm inspection records submitted to the council
• A fire risk assessment for properties above a certain size or age

These conditions bind the licence holder — again, the landlord, not the agent. A breach of licence conditions can lead to enforcement or revocation. Letting a licensable property without a required licence is a separate offence: prosecution can carry an unlimited fine, and a qualifying rent repayment order can cover up to 24 months' rent for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026 (up to 12 months for earlier offences).

Before appointing an agent in a licensed area, check whether their management agreement explicitly covers the licence conditions, not just the baseline alarm regulations. Ask for evidence of their compliance process: what do they record, when do they record it, and will they give you copies?

Protecting Yourself

Whether you use a fully managed agent, a tenant-find service, or manage entirely yourself, the protection is the same: keep your own dated records. Do not rely solely on the agent's systems — if they lose data, change software, or go out of business, your compliance history goes with them.

Our Smoke and CO Alarm Compliance Guide includes a test record and fault response log you can keep in your own files, independent of any agent. It includes fields for alarm location, make, manufacture date, test date and time, test result, and who conducted it.

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