Hi Martin - you have slipped to page 2 so may not get many responses unless I bump you up a bit. If I understand your post correctly, the flat is rented as a private household, but the tenant also happens to work in the ground floor office (for you? For someone else? For themselves as a s/e person?). If you separate the two functions, you have a self-contained privately rented flat, and an office. There may be an implication for fire safety measures relating to the "common parts" of the domestic accomodation . . . but that would not include a bedroom accessed from within the flat. It is just coincidental that the office worker also happens to live there. You also have an office - again - not sure who the person is working for, but as you then mention 'lone working' I am assuming you (your company) are the employer. The office is a place of work so the RRO applies, but fire safety is relatively simple for this. You do not mention the fire provision specifically, usually one route is OK for a small office. One exit may well also be OK for the private dwelling, although I am not an expert on this. BUT . . if I lived in such a flat I would want a detector in the bedroom as it is on another floor, and I would be especially interested in whether I could escape from the 2nd floor in the event of a fire in either my own living area or the office on the ground floor. Much will therefore depend on the access, stairs, compartmentalisation, etc, which you don't provide. I don't believe bedroom detection is required, but I think it makes sense, depending on the stairs and fire-door provision. This is where the 'common parts' bit of the fire regs applies too. If the premises have a separate protected stairwell, and all the accommodations are behind fire doors, it should be straightforward. If the configuration is different, or the doors are not fire specced, you need to tackle that first, and perhaps get a quote for extending detection to the 2nd floor bedroom. All of this assumes that the (your?) employee is not working from home as well!!

Thanks. The person works for us, and also lives in the flat. So is both tentant and employee. It is a very old building dating back from the 17th or 18th century. The stairs are a dog leg, and the treds are worn. None of the doors in the flat are fire rated. The tentant is also a complusive hoader and I have been trying to get the tentant to clear the huge amount of combustible items. Fire would spread quickey throughout the building. I think detection on the bedroom floor is a no brainer. I do worry about her being in there all alone 24/ 7.

Martin - Canopener good points. Landlords are only required to do 'reasonable' under civil law / occupier liability, for single let property. The statutory areas are gas safety, and maybe asbestos. The rest is building regs standards. If it were a multilet of a certain criteria (defined as HMO) the council will have standards which will require specific fire safety measures, and I used these as a broad approach to the advice I gave. Now you have outlined more detail, I can see why you are concerned, but you still have to separate the tenant from the worker - they are perfectly entitled to use the property as they wish as long as there is no actual damage. For a fire to start there must be an ignition source, so managing these is the priority control area. Electric hob/cooker is usual choice for landlords, to minimise both fire and gas risk / maintenance. The electrical installation should be checked these days - again not a legal requirement specifically, but letting agents suggest every 5 years. Maybe a shopping list of 'improvements' to the flat, extend detection, install sounder in bedroom, protect the kitchen at least by fire door, check electrics and ignition sources such as cooker, gas fire? etc. The lone work is not high risk from the sound of it, so communication is the main expectation, with daily contact (working days) with 'buddy'.