How Landlords Record Furniture Fire-Safety Labels Before a Furnished Let

A faded hang-tag, a receipt in a drawer, or a memory that the sofa came from a chain store is a hidden gap. List every sofa, chair and mattress you supply. Find the permanent sewn-in label — the durable tag, not the old green swing card. Photograph that label and the same item in the room. If the wording is gone, remove or replace the piece before keys and date the line.

Tuesday, void week. Mara’s furnished two-bed in Manchester. The clerk’s note: “2-seat sofa — no fire label found.” She has last year’s purchase email and a living-room photo, but no close-up of a CARELESSNESS CAUSES FIRE label — the usual heading on a sewn-in sofa tag — and the mattress was never listed. In practice a one-page list with a label shot plus a room shot, and a line “unlabelled armchair removed 9 Sep, replaced 10 Sep”, would have been the file.

Disclaimer: IziRento is operations software, not legal advice. Local tenancy rules vary; check a qualified adviser for binding decisions.

How do you list every landlord-supplied sofa and mattress?

Walk the furnished or part-furnished let and write one line per piece you supply: room plus item. A typical line is “Living — 2-seat sofa” or “Bed 1 — double mattress”. Include cushions and an upholstered headboard if you supplied them. Tenant-owned sofas stay off. Unfurnished with no relevant stock means stop.

The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire) (Safety) Regulations 1988 — UK product-safety rules for upholstered furniture you hire out in a let — cover seating you put in. Business Companion (October 2025) includes private landlords and agents who let furnished homes. NRLA (12 November 2025) names sofas, sofa-beds, futons, mattresses, headboards, cushions, covers, and indoor garden seating.

Do start with what you or the agent supplied. Do not add the tenant’s sofa because it sits in the living room. Curtains, carpets and bedclothes stay off. For example, Mara’s two-bed needed four lines: sofa, two chairs, mattress. The Ikea email was not a line.

What to look for instead of a hang-tag?

The file needs the permanent label — a durable tag securely attached to an external surface — not a hanging display card. From 30 October 2025 manufacturers need not attach that swing tag. A new sofa without a green hang-tag can still be compliant. Hunt the sewn-in CARELESSNESS CAUSES FIRE wording under the cushion or on the base.

GOV.UK on the 2025 amendment (in force 30 October 2025) drops the display-label duty. Permanent-label duties under regulation 11 and Schedule 7 stay. Each piece of a suite needs its own label. Stitching is the best sign it is original; treat a later staple with caution. Old stock may still wear a swing tag. Its absence after that date is not a fail.

Schedule 7 excepts mattresses and bed-bases from that CARELESSNESS CAUSES FIRE form. Still list the mattress you supply. Photograph the fire-resistance mark — Business Companion describes a BS 7177 label (blue border, cigarette and flame symbols). FIRA (7 April 2026) repeats the exception. No mark and no supplier evidence → treat as missing. Typical mistake: hunting sofa wording on the ticking, then skipping the bed.

Do not treat the green hang-tag as the file. Do write “permanent label found” or “BS 7177 found” against the line.

How do you photograph the label and the item in the room?

Take two frames per listed item and stop. One close-up must make the permanent wording readable. The other must show which piece it is in that room. Date the files and pair both to the list line. That is the whole photo rule.

Tenancy Agreement Service (last reviewed 21 July 2026) treats a photo of each permanent label plus a written record as the audit. Pair the close-up to the room shot. Do set the phone clock. Do not open a corners-and-EXIF lecture — that is the inventory photograph standards guide.

For example, Mara’s living-room wide shot proved a sofa existed. It did not prove a sewn-in label. The mattress still needed its own pair. Two frames. Then stop.

What to do when the fire label is missing or illegible?

A ripped or blank tag is a missing label. Do not sew on a reprint, iron on a shop tag, or buy hang-tags online. Remove or replace the piece before the tenant moves in, then write one dated line: item, room, what was wrong, removed or replaced, and what went back.

Business Companion’s goods in rented accommodation page: unlabelled items may not conform; do not let them until you have manufacturer or original-supplier evidence. The second-hand guide (October 2025) uses the same ignition standards as new. No label → do not let it. Pre-1 January 1950 unmodified furniture is excluded. A 1970s foam armchair is not that exemption.

Then photograph the replacement’s label and the replacement in the room. Do file that new pair against the log line. Typical mistake: leaving the unlabelled charity-shop chair “until next week”.

Why keep the label file with the furnished inventory?

The label file sits with the furnished inventory: the list, the paired photos, the remove/replace log, and the receipts. It does not rebuild the room-by-room schedule of condition. A receipt helps you remember the shop. It does not prove that sofa still wears that label.

NRLA’s Mastering inventories in 2025 names fire-label checks as a check-in line. That is why this pack sits next to the inventory — not why you rewrite it. Room walk and grades live on the check-in inventory schedule. Do not paste label close-ups into every skirting paragraph. Do file four pieces: list, photos, remove/replace log, receipts.

Workflow: List stock → Find the permanent label (mattress = BS 7177) → Photo label + item → Missing → remove or replace and log → File with the inventory → Stop.

Success bar: you can open the list, two photos per line, and any remove/replace date in a minute. Verify that checklist pack, then stop. You do not walk skirting boards here. The alarm sheet is the smoke and CO alarm test log. An IziRento workspace can hold the list, the label photos and the dated line. It does not certify furniture.