Landlords must install and maintain working smoke alarms in rental properties, including annual checks and battery replacement. Tenants who cover or remove alarms with bags, foil, or shower caps risk shifting legal liability to themselves if a fire occurs. Smart House Australia handles full installation and certification to keep landlords compliant.
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Hey, we've got Jarrah here today from smarthouse australia.com. we've got a few questions for her around smoke alarms and gas heaters. So today I just want to ask a few questions. Is that all right, Jarrah?
That's fine. I can do this.
This is our first video. So as a landlord, do I need to put smoke alarms in my tenants places?
Absolutely. By law, you have to have smoke alarms working. Smoke alarms in a residential rental property? Absolutely.
There you go. Okay, so if, if I have to, then once it's in, who's responsible? Does the tenant look after it or do I?
The tenant should not be touching smoke alarms at all. It is 100% the responsibility of the landlord or residential rental provider. So that is very, very important that the owner gets organised annual safety checks for the smoke alarms just to keep your tenant safe, keep your property safe, and keep the insurance company off your back as well.
Excellent. Okay, well, that's very clear there. Now one of the questions I had was, can I pull out the smoke alarm while I'm cooking? Smoking.
Do not do that. It's good. If the smoke alarm's going off when you're cooking, it means it's working. But no. Beeping alarms can be a common fault with smoke alarms. So if you're a tenant and the alarm's beeping when you're cooking, just tell your agent, tell them, put in an email saying, my smoke alarm's beeping. Smart house will go out and check it out and make sure there's no issues there. We'll replace it. If we need to move it, we'll move it. But do not take the smoke alarm down. I cannot stress this enough.
Okay, cool. Thank you for that. Excellent. And I guess that probably leads me to another question is what's one of the craziest Thai events have seen with smoke alarms?
Oh, my God. So we've had our technicians going to properties where the smoke alarms have been taken down. They've been covered with like Alvi bags or Woolworths bags. They've been covered with foil. They've been covered with shower caps. With beeping smoke alarms, people will go at any lengths to just get them to shut up. So they just completely. Yeah, lock them out. It's again, it's a no, no, don't cover up your smoke alarm. There was also, there's a photo going around social media with a D on the smoke alarm. It says, where was this smoke alarm or when was this smoke line put into the property? And it said, oh, it was put on the roof. It didn't actually give a date. It's just like. It's just common sense, really, guys. So, yeah, don't put anything on your smoke alarms and don't rip them down.
Great. Thank you. That's good enough. And I guess that leads me to the other question, because landlords are quite liable for a lot of things, and that's why we've got good landlord insurance. And if they're faulty and they haven't looked after them, I'm guessing the landlord. Landlord is. Is liable for that. Is there at any time that the tenant is liable other than the. The responsibility is going back to the tenant.
Back to the tenant, yeah. So if we have serviced a property and we have the service certificate, flight certificate in place on the date we attended, and then three months later, you go to the property for a routine and find it's been ripped down or damaged and that, you know, potentially could be a fire, then that litigation can fall onto the tenant because we have proof that we attended when we attended and there was no issues. What happens in between does fall on the tenant, unless you've got proof otherwise that the owner did it. But, yeah, if the tenant tampers with the alarm, it can definitely fall on that with me.
Well, that's key, I think, for any tenants out there. Do not touch the smoke alarms. Ring your property manager, and we'll get Smart House Australia in.
Yeah, don't even touch the batteries. Like, we cover absolutely everything. We change the batteries, we service them, we test them, make sure they're in that spot. Tenant doesn't need to do anything in a rental property regarding smart ones.
Awesome. Okay, thanks, Jarrah. And that was good. Very informative. I think I know what I'm going to do from now on. Call Smart House Australia. Bye.
