Furnished accommodation

If you are providing furnished accommodation you need to understand your responsibility to provide safe furniture and furnishings, in particular in relation to fire safety.

The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire)(Safety) Regulations 1988 apply to domestic items which contain upholstery, including beds, headboards, mattresses, sofa-beds, nursery furniture, garden furniture which can be used indoors, furniture in new caravans, scatter cushions, seat pads, pillows and loose and stretch covers for furniture.

Requirements of the regulations:

1. All new furniture (except mattresses, bed-bases, pillows, scatter cushions, seat pads and loose and stretch covers for furniture) must carry a display label at the point of sale. This is the retailer’s responsibility.

2. All new furniture (except mattresses and bed bases) and loose and stretch covers are required to carry a permanent label providing information about their fire-retarding properties. Such a label will indicate compliance, although lack of one would not necessarily imply non-compliance as the label might have been removed.

The Regulations apply to any of the following that contain upholstery:

• furniture

• beds, headboards of beds, mattresses

• sofa beds, futons and other convertibles

• scatter cushions and seat pads

• pillows

• loose and stretch covers for furniture.