Do You Really Need to Test Smoke Alarms Every Year? The Truth for Landlords

Search "landlord smoke alarm rules" and you'll find plenty of advice telling you to test alarms annually, alongside your gas check. It's well-meant, but it's not actually what the law requires — and treating it like an annual, fixed-date deadline (the way you would gas or EICR) can leave you tracking the wrong thing entirely.

What the regulations actually say

Under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, as amended in 2022, landlords must:

• Fit a working smoke alarm on every storey of the property that's used as living accommodation
• Fit a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance — this now includes gas boilers and gas fires, not just wood or coal burners, since the 2022 update (gas cookers are the one exception)
• Check that every alarm is working at the start of each new tenancy
• Repair or replace any alarm a tenant reports as faulty, as soon as reasonably practicable

Why this distinction actually matters

If you track alarm testing the way you'd track a gas certificate — as an annual date that renews itself — you'll end up doing one of two things: testing on a schedule that isn't legally required (harmless, but pointless admin), or worse, assuming last year's "test" still counts as compliance when what actually matters is whether it was working when the current tenancy began.

The real risk moment is a new tenancy starting without anyone having actually checked the alarms that day. That's the point that gets scrutinised if there's ever an incident or a complaint — not whether a test happened exactly 12 months ago.

What happens if you get caught out

Local authorities enforce this, usually via a remedial notice first. If a landlord doesn't comply with that notice — insufficient alarms, or alarms that weren't working at the start of the tenancy — the council can issue a financial penalty of up to £5,000.

So what should you actually track?

Since the legal requirement is tied to tenancy starts rather than a fixed interval, the useful thing to track isn't "last tested + 12 months" — it's a reminder ahead of your next known or expected tenancy change, so you don't forget to check on the day it matters. That's a genuinely different piece of information from a gas or EICR renewal date, even though it lives on the same compliance checklist.