List your alarms and record an alarm check

Each property’s page keeps its alarms under Certificates and alarms: a list of the alarms fitted there, and the checks you’ve made of them.

List the alarms

1. Open the property from Properties, then open Certificates and alarms.
2. Under Alarms, tap Add Alarm.
3. Choose the Kind, say Where it is, and choose its Power.
4. Tick whether it’s interlinked with the other alarms, and add the Date fitted if you know it.
5. Enter Replace by from the alarm itself. Without one, Use the Suggested Date fills it in from the date fitted.
6. For a replaceable battery, add Battery due if you want a reminder.
7. Add a photo with Take Photo if you like, then tap Add Alarm.

The replace-by date is the maker’s own, never a legal duty. A carbon monoxide alarm gets no suggested date: use the date on it.

To change an alarm, tap the More button on its row, then Edit, Replaced or Removed. Replaced records the new alarm with Save Replacement, and keeps the old one as history. Adding, replacing and removing an alarm each go in the evidence file.

As a replace-by date comes near, the property’s page shows a card for it. A battery alarm can be replaced without a trade, and recorded with Replaced, under the More button on its row.

A mains alarm’s replacement can go to an electrician from its card with Send to the trade’s name, as a certificate’s check does. See Book the gas safety check or EICR.

Record an alarm check

1. Under Alarms, below the list of alarms, tap Record Alarm Check.
2. Check Checked on, and fill in Checked by.
3. For each alarm, check Where and choose What you found: Working, Not working, Replaced or Missing. The rows start from your list of alarms.
4. Tap Add Another Alarm for one that isn’t listed, and add a Note if you like.
5. Tap Record Alarm Check.

It goes in the evidence file of the tenancy running that day. It can’t be changed afterwards: a mistake is corrected with a new entry.

When a new tenancy is about to begin, a card on the property’s page asks you to test the alarms on its first day. It shows from 14 days before that day to 7 days after, until a check on or after it is recorded. It says you can test them yourself with each one’s test button.

What the law says about alarms

• On the day a new tenancy begins, a smoke alarm on each storey used as living accommodation must be checked to be in proper working order. So must a carbon monoxide alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance, other than a gas cooker.
• Some tenancies are excluded, and the list of exclusions hasn’t been checked for the app.
• Where a tenant reports that a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm is faulty, the landlord must check it. If it is faulty, it must be repaired or replaced as soon as reasonably practicable.

Try it in the sample account