31 Oct 2007 3:34 PM:

Ok Folks

Looks like the I have found a fairly straightforward solution. After doing a bit of research on the net, The 'Fire Angel' and 'Kidde' manufacturers both make smoke alarms with a sealed for life 10 year battery. Price is circa £16 for both. The model for the 'Fire Angel' is SO610 and the 'Kidde' one is 0910UK. Hopefully this will be of some use to anyone following this thread.

Thread: Smoke Alarms in Rental Properties

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31 Oct 2007 2:34 PM:

Ok Folks

Looks like the I have found a fairly straightforward solution. After doing a bit of research on the net, The 'Fire Angel' and 'Kidde' manufacturers both make smoke alarms with a sealed for life 10 year battery. Price is circa £16 for both. The model for the 'Fire Angel' is SO610 and the 'Kidde' one is 0910UK. Hopefully this will be of some use to anyone following this thread.

Thread: Smoke Alarms in Rental Properties

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29 Oct 2007 6:21 PM:

Rixxy

Thanks for your quick response. I am slightly puzzled over what aspect of rental would be covered by holiday insurance. Are you talking about repatriating folks to the UK or their home country if they are injured, so that I don't get lumbered for that bill? My rental company website 'recommends' that holiday insurance is taken out, but only mentions cancellations on the same sentence. 

Also the rental company states that they are the booking agent and that the 'accomodation contract lies with the property owners'. I suspect this places some onus on me.   

I am keen to learn from someone who has been there and done it - do you have any further suggestions as to what can be done to minimise the professional sponger's claims? I might have to work on the rental company to change their wording?

Thread: Smoke Alarms in Rental Properties

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29 Oct 2007 12:00 AM:

 

I am just back from Murcia after completing the installation of a furnishing package on my new property on Roda Golf (beautiful place by the way!).

Before leaving the UK I was told by the rental company I had chosen to manage my property (who shall remain nameless) that I would need to purchase their top line rental package in order to rent the property out to some of the 'big players' that they deal with and the package would include a fire protection package.  

When I went across, I found that there was a fire extinguisher and a fire blanket but no smoke alarm.

When I queried this with the rental company, I was astonished when they said that there was no legal requirement to install smoke alarms in rental properties in Spain (nor CO2 detectors either). I said I wanted to install one anyway, but they said that they would not guarantee to check it because of the legal implications; if there was a fire resulting in a death and the smoke alarm was found to have dead batteries, then their company would be held legal.

They are a fairly large company and they pointed out that I was one of the first people they had encountered who was so insistent on this point. To be fair they said they would look into this particular policy, although this might have been to placate me! 

Great - I thought kind of mad beaurocracy was reserved for the U.K and the U.S. There is much more likelihood of someone dying  in a fire because of no smoke alarm, than there is of someone dying as the result of a dead battery,(which will last a minimum of 6 months) and should be changed out at this frequency any way.

The only way I can see round this is to find somewhere in the UK that will sell a plug in smoke detector, stick on an adaptor and send it across to be installed.

 Am I the only way person who has encountered this and can anyone confirm there is no 'legal' requirement for smoke alarms on rental properties?

Thread: Smoke Alarms in Rental Properties

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29 Oct 2007 12:00 AM:

Having just completed my property furnishing in Roda Golf, just thought I would promote Murcia furniture as a pretty good place to shop if you are in the market for this. I did a fair bit of shopping around before settling with these guys. Everyone there speaks fluent English and they have a decent sized showroom on the main road from San Javier/Los Alcazares (which is the main reason I settled with these guys  - they are about 20 mins away from my apartment). They moved heaven and earth to help me, and their installation was great.

Due to the fact that I was going abroad early, they were unable to install all the furniture on the first run as they were waiting on delivery of stock. On unpacking, there was a damaged washing machine (which they changed out the following day) and they also took back a 'special order' piece of furniture that did not suit the property once I had seen it installed (They will resell the unit and credit me once it's sold on). Additonally there was some corrosion on a set of kitchen knives (hidden inside wooden block) which they also changed out the following day.

The main thing for me is that although they encountered issues (and all supply companies do from time to time), they did their damndest to sort it out asap. They had good design advice, the furniture is top notch and the lads that installed it were courtoues and professional (and British!).

I am not in any way related to Murcia Fuurniture!!

Thread: Ordering, Collection & Delivery Service?

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