By the Unity Stays directors, Marcus Chong & Gadir Al-Khatib · Last updated 12 August 2026
In short: The property's fire risk assessment decides what is required: escape routes openable from inside without a key, unblocked, lit and leading somewhere safe, with fire doors commonly required in flats, multi-storey properties and kitchens. Fire doors only work closed, so rely on working self-closers, and for a flat in a block get a professional assessment — the building's escape strategy governs.
Why short lets are assessed differently from homes
A resident knows the layout, sleeps in the same room every night and has a mental map of the exits. A guest has none of that, and short-let accommodation is assessed on that basis.
The assumption a fire risk assessment makes is unflattering and correct: an unfamiliar person, possibly disoriented, possibly having had a drink, needing to leave a building they arrived at hours earlier in the dark.
That is why the requirements go beyond what applies to an ordinary dwelling, and why a written assessment is expected rather than optional. Our compliance guide covers the assessment itself.
What an escape route has to be
The principle is simple: a usable way out that does not depend on the guest working anything out.
- Openable from the inside without a key — a thumb-turn lock, not a deadlock a guest has to find a key for
- Not blocked — by furniture, by luggage, by the cleaner's equipment, by a bicycle
- Lit, with emergency lighting where the route is internal or unlit
- Signed, where the way out is not obvious from the door of a bedroom
- Leading somewhere safe, not into an enclosed yard the guest cannot leave
Fire doors, and what makes them useless
Where an assessment requires fire doors — commonly in flats, in multi-storey properties, and on rooms of higher risk such as kitchens — they buy the time that makes escape possible.
They only work closed. A fire door wedged open, or with a broken self-closer, is a normal door with a heavy frame, and it is the most common fire safety failure in short lets because guests prop them for convenience.
The other failures are practical: intumescent strips painted over or removed, gaps at the edges too large, hinges or handles replaced with non-rated fittings during a refurbishment. Each undoes the door quietly.
Telling the guest, without a lecture
A guest who has been shown the exit takes seconds rather than minutes to find it, and this is the cheapest part of the whole subject.
A short escape plan displayed in the property — a simple layout with the route marked — plus a line in the guest guide is enough. It does not need to be a fire drill.
Include where the alarms are and what they sound like, and where the exit leads. Floor and escape plans are part of our onboarding for exactly this reason.
Flats are the hard case
A flat inside a larger block is the situation where amateur assessment breaks down, because the escape strategy belongs to the whole building rather than to your flat.
Whether the block is designed to evacuate or to stay put, whether the communal areas are protected, and what the building's own fire risk assessment says all bear on what your flat needs. The managing agent holds that information.
This is the case where a professional assessment is worth its cost without argument, and where an assumption carried over from a house is most likely to be wrong.
A plain summary of common findings, not a substitute for a fire risk assessment. Requirements depend on the property and vary by nation. Use a competent assessor where the property is not simple.