Smoke Alarms in Tasmanian Rentals

SMOKE ALARMS IN TASMANIAN RENTAL PROPERTIES.

There are a lot of legislative requirements relating to smoke alarms in Tasmanian rental properties. For this reason, Elders Burnie strongly recommend leaving installation and ongoing servicing to the professionals. Elders have a quality relationship with the local smoke alarm servicing company, North West Smoke Alarms, and we even get discounted rates.

See the below extract from the North West Smoke Alarms website;

Smoke Alarms for the Landlord - it’s much more than just changing a battery! It’s the Law.

Tasmania has now come into line with all other States and Territories in Australia with mandatory smoke alarm laws for rental properties. Tasmania has one of the highest house fire fatality rate per capita, the highest dependency on heating and a large percentage of older homes in Australia. These laws are designed to protect people from fire who live in your rental properties and outline a shared responsibility between Landlords and Tenants. From the 1st of May 2016 all rental properties must have either mains powered alarms or 10 year lithium non-removable battery alarms. These new regulations are quite complex and include such things as... • Maintenance and testing must be carried out prior to a new tenant taking occupancy of a rental property. • Smoke alarms must meet Australian Standard 3786 – 1993. • Smoke alarms must not be expired. All smoke alarms have a 10 year life. • Smoke alarms must be positioned correctly depending on the building class and floor plan. • Type of smoke alarm installed and associated maintenance with type of alarm.

The tenant carries some of the responsibility for the maintenance and testing of the alarm?

Yes, the tenant does have a shared responsibility to clean and test the alarm. Does this occur? Are they capable of completing this task? Have they disabled or removed the alarm? We provide peace of mind knowing that your property has functioning compliant smoke alarms and we provide a comprehensive Compliance Report to your Property Manager along with access to all the smoke alarm history should an event occur where you are required to provide this information. Let us take the responsibility for making your property compliant and protect both the tenant and your asset from the impact of fire. The current pricing for this service is $110.00 per annum flat fee and like most expenses associated with owning a rental property, the fee is tax deductible. We think it’s a small price to pay to know that your tenants will be safe if there’s a fire and that your insurance company can’t use a non-compliant smoke alarm as an excuse for you not to be covered. The service is all inclusive and the fee will cover anything required by the technician to keep your property compliant, whether that means new alarms, repositioning alarms, annual testing, testing more than once annually to comply with the new tenancy testing laws, etc.