new hmo standards for 1st ocober 2018

[alonso]

Has anyone heard of the exact requirements for these new hmo standards coming into affect on 1st october 2018? according to my letting agent (I am the landlord) I will need a fire blanket (fine), extinguisher (ok) and more worryingly fire doors throughout the property. She can't tell me the exact regs/law/british standards which stated this but she was informed of these new standards 'on a course'...

the property is a HMO as it is a semi detached house with:

Underfloor storage for majority of the ground floor (only accessible from outside)
Ground floor hall, kitchen, utility annex and living/dining room with log burner (CO alarm in place)
1st floor landing, toilet, bathroom, 2 bedrooms
2nd floor unoccupied loft storage
interlinked mains smokes with battery backup throughout

At present there is a married couple in 1 bedroom and an unmarried couple in the other bedroom. Apparently because they are effectively 3 separate units this is an HMO. Maybe I should persuade the unmarried couple to get married!

[Mar62]

To my knowledge (and i could be corrected) the only significant change will be to the actual definition of a HMO. I believe the new definition will be "any property occupied by 5 or more people that forms 2 or more separate households. At the moment the definition includes "and comprises 3 or more storeys', thats the bit that is being removed from the definition - the amount of storeys that will make it a HMO. The requirement for fire resistant doors etc isn't new.