Is this a bit ott for renting?

[atasteofhoneyy]

We are moving abroad and putting the house up for rent. It’s a 4 bed terrace. We live in inner London and it’s likely we’ll get a group of young professional housemates rather than a family.

We’ve just got a fireproofing guy to come and check the house to make it renter compliant. He has told us we need to plasterboard a load of walls/ under the stairs. Plasterboard the ceiling. Emergency lights to replace our light fittings. He’s charging £3.5k just to come and install fire alarms.

I understand we have to have fire doors and fire alarms/ PAC testing. Emergency exit signs fine. But the plasterboard, drilling through the living room wall to install a special fire alarm (we already have Nest protect on each floor), putting in emergency lights, feels a bit over the top and a bit ‘HMO’.

AIBU? Whenever we’ve rented in the past we’ve not had these kinds of set ups.

Exactly this, I do a lot of work on HMOs, when they are done properly there is a huge amount of work done to "commercialise" the common areas and make them wear and tear resistant.

Still, with the best will in the world, if the OP intends to move back at some point, it will require another full refurb to convert it back to a family home.

OP- How long are you moving abroad for? A permanent move or temporary?

Not if she has any sense. Installation of 3 fire alarms does not need to cost £1500.

She can look the fire regs up online as I said,

Three fire alarms, that have to be wired up, over three floors?

OP didn't even seem to realise that she was creating an HMO!

You source the alarms and pay an electrician, it’s not rocket science.

I'm sure the OP is capable of doing that. When the OP doesn't even realise she is creating an HMO of over two floors.

I’m sure she is, thus would avoid paying £3500 for 3 alarms.

I think she didn’t realise the reality of renting to YPs.

Ha ha. OP has just discovered the cost of hiring professionals in London.

Please rent to a family. Neighbours rented out their house to 4 young professionals and they were an absolute nightmare, loud music through the night into the morning, rude when asked to turn it down and then sublet another room to a man who had mental health issues which made him behave strangely. There’s now a lovely family there.

It isn't just the number of people though, its whether you've got a third floor/attic conversion. Due to the way that fires spread up stairwells and the (usually lack of) fire exits for an upper floor, any rental with an extra floor requires a lot more in terms of fire safety. If you have three rooms on the first floor and one above you might want to look into whether it works out better to rent the property as a three bed + storage area.

It is vanishingly rare for a London townhouse to have four bedrooms on the first floor, so clearly OP's house has a loft conversion.

But OP has not had the answers she wanted, so is not coming back.

I think the pound signs are drifting away on the breeze here....

Agreed.

I'm still laughing at this: "feels a bit over the top and a bit ‘HMO’."

Yes. Because it's an HMO 😆

I’d love to know what some people thought constituted a HMO if it’s not 4+ people renting rooms in a house.

Tbf I houseshared for many years and although the homes might have technically been HMO, as in they were rented on a room by room basis, very few of the properties I lived in required any changes to the property. In my part of the country it was only required if they were 5 bed or more, or were over 3 floors, or were set up as supported living. It's relatively recently that it's become fairly standard for most house shares to have to meet these requirements.

No it’s not about making money - we’re only renting it out because we’re moving away and want to keep paying the mortgage. It’s just more likely it will be sitting empty as we’re not in a very family friendly area - even the letting agent said so

Are you in England? The 5 bedrooms thing was actually often an error by landlords (sometimes deliberate, sometimes not) as the law since 2004 has been 5+ people (it got stricter in 2018).

Quite a few LL’s got themselves caught out when a boyfriend or girlfriend moved in as it wasn’t the rooms that mattered.

If not to a family but individuals different rules. Make sure you do this legally and protect the deposits etc. get proper legal advice

Yes there’s a loft conversion - the plasterboard is for under the stairs, corridor, downstairs ceiling.

I houseshare in NW England till around 2010 I think. There were HMO licences in our area back then but it was still a minority of properties. That's not to say LLs weren't meant to have made improvements elsewhere, but if it didn't require a licence and they could get the rent I doubt they would have cared!

Given the housing shortage in London surely there would be some families interested?

Have you checked the HMO rules in your specific area yet? Some areas allow 3 unrelated people - that may be better than no people?

Exactly what I wanted to do, if we get a family that would be perfect. But it’s apparently unlikely.

So from 2004 the national rules in England were 5+ people had to be licensed. Some areas were stricter right away.

I only know as a ll in my street at the time got caught out as he had 4 tenants, then 2 moved partners in and 1 moved their sister in. He agreed to it as he thought it was 5+ bedrooms then got a belting fine because it was people (and he got himself in bother because he applied to pave over the garden and drop the kerb to make more parking for all the cars 🤦🏻‍♀️)

We may be back for the kids secondary schools, but it will likely be a long term move. They’re 3 and 1.

Yes - I had (from my experience of house shares) an idea that an HMO was a load of bedsits, not a house shared by a group of housemates.
The last place we were in was a rental, which was a family home. Rented it with dh and kids. When we left, four unrelated friends moved in. No plasterboard etc. put up.