New rules for holiday lets

Being compliant with UK holiday let regulations

Buying a holiday let is an exciting investment, but it’s essential for property owners to stay informed about the latest legal requirements.

We often hear from owners who are confused by the new rules for holiday lets, but at Host & Stay you can rest assured that our team is on hand to make sure that your property complies with them all – plus a few extras to ensure your property is ahead of the curve and doesn’t face restriction in the future.

Regulations overview

There are a number of standards that your property must meet in order to operate as a holiday let. While it was announced in the Autumn 2024 budget that Furnished Holiday Lets (FHL) will no longer enjoy tax benefits from April 2025, there are of course still many reasons to own a holiday let, and being compliant with all health and safety standards is key to this.

Before getting started on compliance, it’s important to note that as of October 2022, if your property is in Scotland, you must have a short term accommodation license. In England, new government controls include a planning class for holiday lets, which means that planning permission is required in certain areas – you can find out if this is required by your local authority using this handy tool. There is also a new national registration scheme for holiday lets, and properties must have holiday home insurance, as well as an EPC rating of E or above, just like longer term rental properties.

When it comes to compliance, requirements broadly fall into these categories:

Fire safety – including conducting fire risk assessments, installing smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, ensuring all furnishings are fire safe, and installing extinguishers and fire blankets where needed.
Electrical, gas and oil safety – including regular inspections and certificates. Electrical safety checks are recommended every five years, but swimming pools and hot tubs require an annual check along with any gas appliances for which a Gas Safety Certificate is required.

Fire Safety

There have been a number of changes to fire regulations over recent months.

The main change is that 44mm fire doors are now required in all habitable rooms (bedrooms, kitchen and living rooms), and these rooms must also have smoke and heat alarms hard-wired in. Hallways and staircases must have emergency escape lighting. These changes bring holiday lets in line with long term lets and modern day building regulations, and align with the regulations currently all already in place in Scotland and Wales.

Fire blankets are also required to ensure that fires can be dealt with quickly and efficiently, and thumb turn locks to ensure that inhabitants can easily leave a building in the event of a fire without having to first locate the key.

Concerned about the cost, or protecting your period property?

Try using fire protection paint instead of fire doors – available in a range of colours, including as a clear lacquer.
Install a bluetooth connected smoke alarm – at around £85 per unit, you can avoid the need for a full rewire.

Gas and Electrical Safety

There are number of important gas and electrical safety checks that must be carried out, these include:

CP12 – this check ensures safety of the boiler and the gas outlets. We recommend getting your property’s boiler serviced every twelve months, especially in advance of the winter to avoid any issues that might crop up due to cold weather conditions.

CD11 – this is the oil fired equivalent check of CP12, and therefore only required for properties running from an oil source.

Additional checks required by Host & Stay

At Host & Stay, Callum heads up our Compliance & Maintenance team. Having been with the business since 2018 and initially involved in the construction arm of the group as QS and project manager, Callum has vast knowledge when it comes to the importance of compliance and maintenance. We asked him to outline some of the additional checks required at Host & Stay; checks that we believe are likely to be legal requirements in the future, and which ensure maximum safety for guests now.

While PAT testing is not a legal requirement, it is a requirement for Host & Stay properties as it ensures that all appliances are safe. We feel this is important given that in a self-catering let, guests are making use of a range of appliances and may also want to link up their own devices and use their own extension cables. It’s also important to note that often corporate guests will seek out properties with PAT testing, and so having this ensures you are open to a wide range of bookings.

Legionnaires is something of a grey area when it comes to meeting compliance regulations, but at Host & Stay we require it to ensure safety in every one of our properties. Legionnaires is found in stagnant water, often in older properties where storage tanks are used to hold cold water. In newer properties, it’s more common to find unvented water cylinders, where the water is in flow, but we still require legionnaires testing just to be on the safe side. The legionnaires check involves testing all the water outlets in the property, and ensuring that the temperature of the water leaving the boiler is 50 degrees or above, as legionella bacteria cannot survive above this temperature. We also check that shower heads are clean of debris as this can be a key location for legionella bacteria to flourish.

We also recommend that every property has a first aid kit, and a fire blanket.

We’re here to help

We’ve introduced our streamlined compliance service plans because we know that it’s important to have flexibility depending on the needs of the properties. Our plans are competitively priced and tailored the specific requirements of your property, whether it is run from gas, oil or electric. Our plans offer a monthly fee in place of a big upfront bill, so that owners can spread the cost whilst still receiving the same service.

We’re proud of our services, and this year have invested in growing our team to ensure we can meet the demands of developing properties in a way that ensures they are fully compliant and at their best, providing services internally, such as bathroom fitting, to do so. There’s no reason to be afraid or intimidated by the compliance and the new rules for holiday lets when you join Host & Stay.

As well as managing compliance, we’re also on hand to help with any maintenance related issues at your property. This covers a range of essential tasks to keep your holiday let running smoothly, meet safety standards, and deal with any issues that may arise during a guest’s stay. Our maintenance services include:

Routine Maintenance – this includes general wear and tear at your property and small repairs such as changing light bulbs.
Urgent Maintenance Call Outs – this includes 24/7 emergency support for urgent issues that may arise at your property, such as power outages, plumbing leaks, or heating failures.
Exterior Maintenance – where possible we offer exterior maintenance which includes grass cutting, weeding and window cleaning. If you’re interested in our exterior maintenance services, please contact us to see if this is available for your property.
Environmental and Sustainable Maintenance – as part of our ongoing ESG strategy, we provide suggestions and implementing solutions as much as possible to make properties more energy-efficient, such as installing energy-saving light bulbs and our revolutionary ResiAIR technology.

We use a comprehensive maintenance platform, FixFlow, for issue reporting and compliance tracking to ensure your property is safe and running smoothly. As an owner with us, you’ll have your own account on the platform where you can raise maintenance issues for our team to attend, see completed issues, and track compliance related tasks. A fantastic tool for both us and you, the platform offers complete transparency so you can see exactly what is happening at your property.

Contact our team today for peace of mind on compliance and the latest regulations.