FRFree

Tom's right, assuming the upholstery items are intended for the UK domestic market. If they are for the non-domestic market, the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies. In which case the fire services are the enforcement authority. Alternatively, you can check the website of MHCLG where you can download brochures which give advice on the FSO.

Little late to this thread. Tom is right, the Furniture Regs are badly written. I used to head them up at the Department for Business but made the mistake of developing a new match test that would have reduced flame retardants and with it massive profits to industry. Hence safety changes proposed in 2014 are still being blocked. Regarding labels, the Regs aren't really clear. Advice from BEIS lawyers in the past was that they probably don't apply to say charities or individuals giving away an old sofa or mattress but would apply to a charity shop that is a business. However, very few charities take the risk and tend to automatically not pass on old sofas. This is unfortunate for local authorities and re-use charities who are forced to in effect send millions of sofas to landfill every year - because people tend to tear off the permanent label which is required by law. Why is BEIS taking so long to update the Regs? Good question! They had been sitting on their 2016 consultation for 3 years; then got hammered by the Environmental Audit Committee for not having put the Regs right despite BEIS proving they don't even work back in 2014. This put BEIS in a tough spot, i.e. if they now amend the Regs, they'll be in effect admitting that they've allowed unsafe, toxic products to get into the market for 5 years. So, a few months back they announced that they are not now going to act on their proposals of 2016; instead, they are going to ask the British Standards Institute to come up with new measures. They appear to have forgotten that they tried to do the same thing in 2015 only to be turned down by BSI who did not want to get involved in politically sensitive regulations work. Or they did know this, therefore knowing that nothing is likely to change for many years to come.

Tom, apologies for not replying earlier. The notifications facility doesn't seem to work on my PC. As I said, this is a grey area between the Furniture Regulations and the FSO which no one at BEIS or MHCLG appears to have the slightest interesting in putting right and probably doesn't even know about these days. I'm therefore not sure what the answer is; it may have to be tested in court. I don't think a plumber working in your house means the FSO applies but I recall discussions between the two departments (when I worked for BEIS) about the situation where you convert a room into an office - with no solution come to. This means that no one knows whether the office chair you put in your home office should comply with the Furniture Regs or the FSO (and they are slightly different for such chairs). But, yes, you are probably right that assuming such a situation is a domestic property is the sensible thing to do.

Actually, there is a grey area here. If the house is being used for non-domestic purposes - in this case as film location - it could be argued that the Fire Safety Order applies. There are no requirements for curtains to be fire-resistant under domestic legislation, but I think there may be under the FSO. The test would be if a fire started in the curtains and caused damage, e.g. to the film-maker's equipment. The enforcement body for the FSO is the fire service, so they would decide whether or not to make a case. If you want to be on the safe side, you should check out the FSO brochures on MHCLG's site. You might still need legal advice, however. I used to work on the domestic fire regulations and regularly liaised with MHCLG colleagues on the FSO about the many overlapping areas, but I could never get them to help me sort it out!

The quote above (August 12) is from the American Chemistry Council's site. The ACC is pretty much a lobby group for the flame retardant industry; therefore not to be trusted to give an objective view. In fact, while it's true that HCN is produced when various materials burn (including wool), what is also true is that far greater amounts of HCN (up to 10 times more) are produced when flame retardants in products burn. See: https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/29324384/Flame_retardants_in_UK_furniture_increase_smoke_toxicity_more_than_they_reduce_fire_growth_rate.

The Furniture Regulations are very confusing on these points. But don't expect clarity any time soon! The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been sitting on proposed changes it put out for consultation in 2016. Those proposals were very inadequate anyway. For political reasons, the proposals were rushed out by a new team who know next to nothing about the regulations, and do not even have any files on them! They were completely unaware, for example, that everyone had agreed to propose a new permanent label carrying the words: DO NOT REMOVE THIS LABEL. Since people currently often do then find they can't sell a product on. The position with charities is also unclear. The Guidance to the Regulations (see below) suggests that if a charity is selling furniture in the course of a business, i.e. in a charity shop, then all the labelling requirements must be followed. If however, a charity is giving furniture away for free or for a small fee, then it probably doesn't have to comply with the Regulations. Most charities, however - understandably perhaps - will not take furniture from you that does carry the permanent label. Labelling is again confusing. First, there are no labelling requirements for mattresses and bed-bases under the Furniture Regulations (unlike for sofas). For reasons that no one knows, mattress covers/ticking does not fall into the scope of the Regulations. It therefore by default falls under EU law - the General Product Safety Regulations (Brexit should be interesting here). Just to complicate things even further, the GPSD is advisory not prescriptive like the Furniture Regs. The advice under the GPSR is that mattress covers should pass BS7177. BS7177 has labelling requirements. In practice, therefore, mattresses and bed-bases should carry the BS7177 label, even though it is not illegal if they don't. On guidance, as I've said before, for potential legal reasons I would not use - or at least not rely on - FIRA's guide. It contains errors, just like the government's guidance but I would use the latter's, just in case: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.bis.gov.uk/files/file24685.pdf

A couple of points that may help. First, the Furniture Regulations apply only to suppliers. If, therefore, you are making or re-upholstering furniture just for your own use, it does not have to comply. However, you can not in future sell it on or give it away, since that makes you a supplier.The Regulations are very much out of date and were full of grey areas in the first place. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is responsible for them. However, the lead official on them is almost totally ignorant about them. If you don't believe me, give her a ring and ask her the kinds of questions being raised here. Her name is Debra Macleod: 020 7215 0973. I would not recommend FIRA for advice. They are a commercial test house and trade association with some heavily vested interests. Their technical knowledge has somewhat diminished over the past few years under their all-out assault for profits. I also would not trust their guide to the Regulations: apart from containing errors, if you follow it and things go wrong you would not have much of a legal defence. Better, therefore, to use the government's guidance. That too is full of errors and is not even easily available but you can find it here: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http:/www.bis.gov.uk/files/file24685.pdf

The Furniture Regulations are ineffective and frankly in a mess. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (yes, I know: what is the department for business doing looking after safety laws which, to put right, would cost businesses money) revealed in 2014 that they do not even work and proposed changes that would. But industry intervened and BEIS officials (all but one) went along with delaying the changes. They re-proposed some of them in 2016 after pressure from the press but have been sitting on a response to the consultation ever since. Essentially, this is the (messy) situation: the Furniture Regulations apply to suppliers based in the UK, not consumers. Any retailer, therefore, based in the UK must sell products that comply with the regulations. A consumer is free to buy furniture from anywhere outside the UK, because they are not a supplier. They cannot, however, then sell on or give away the product because that makes them a supplier. Internet sellers have greatly obscured this situation. As Tom says, Amazon was and is selling non-compliant furniture from suppliers outside the UK. When challenged about this by Trading Standards, Amazon claimed it is not a supplier; it's just an agent. Trading Standards sought legal counsel which disagreed - confirming that because the consumer pays Amazon, gets a receipt from them and complains to them when things go wrong, it is a supplier. Amazon removed the particular product from sale but did not agree that it is a supplier. It is perhaps a measure of how incompetent government is that nothing has been done about this four years or so on. As for BEIS, a couple of us managed to get a meeting with the lead official on these Regulations in May this year (mind you, that took a year and a complaint to the Minister to achieve). This person insisted that they are working hard on the necessary changes. However, she did not know that the Regulations are based on British Standards and did not know what an interliner is, even though a proposal for interliners is in their 2016 consultation that she is apparently working so hard on. I can guarantee that she is completely unaware of the issue of internet sellers.

Just to be clear, there are no flammability requirements for bedding. You can of course buy flame-resistant bedding and, for sure, much ordinary bedding contains flame retardant chemicals anyway (the FR industry is very good at persuading makers of flammable products to stock up on their goods). Research has shown, however, that FRs are very toxic in their stable state and, once they catch fire, produce large volumes of toxic fumes such as hydrogen cyanide. Which is probably more dangerous than tobacco smoke.

It's complicated! Essentially, the Furniture Regulations apply to covers and fillings of sofas but only the fillings of mattresses. In the many years I worked for the government on these regulations, I was never able to find out why mattress covers were excluded. Mattress covers by default fall under the General Product Safety Regulations 2005, as Tom says. This means the requirements for mattresses are not straightforward, i.e: The Furniture Regs are UK law and prescriptive The GPSR are EU law and advisory Which means by law you must comply with the Furniture Regs but where the GPSR is concerned you can decide yourself what constitutes 'safe'. In practice, everyone agrees that BS 7177 should be met to demonstrate 'safe' for mattress covers. But you aren't breaking the law exactly if you don't use it. It would be up to Trading Standards to convince a court that you should have used it and therefore your product isn't safe (which to be fair a court would almost certainly do). BS 7177 has a labelling requirement. Again, it's not against the law exactly not to put it on a product but it would certainly help Trading Standards' case if it's absent. The permanent label required by the Furniture Regs, however, is a legal requirement: if it's missing, then in effect your mattress is illegal. Therefore I agree with Tom that it would be unwise to provide your tenants with a sofa that doesn't carry the permanent label. And in practice that pretty much goes for mattresses too. Just to add to the complication . . . While BS 7177 is used to demonstrate the safety of mattress covers, it's a composite test, i.e. carried out over the cover and the filling. Quite a few 'organic' mattress makers only test to BS 7177, claiming that it is the test for both covers and fillings. But it isn't. Fillings need to comply with the Furniture Regs. But some organic materials - like 100% latex - would never pass the fillings test but they can pass the BS 7177 test. You can guess the rest . . . The Department for Business started to resolve this and many other anomalies in the regulations but for the past 4 years they've done bugger all about them. I suspect they're waiting for Brexit and hoping that they can simply ditch them then.

Hi Tom. This is of course just my view! But the problem with FIRA is similar to what has happened with BRE, British Standards, and the Laboratory of the Government Chemist. All started more or less as government agencies but all are now commercial concerns, some still receiving government funding also (as with British Standards). FIRA used to in effect be the government's voice on the Furniture Regs. However, it has long ceased to be connected to the government, even though it likes to strongly imply that this is the case (for obvious reasons). Also, it became much more commercially-minded a few years ago by appointing someone who better remain nameless for now but who has her own PR company; that and FIRA becoming part of BM Trada. In my experience this means that FIRA has become less technically expert in testing (concentrating more on other sides to their business) and has also made several questionable alliances. One such is that they work very closely with the flame retardant and chemical treatment industries. This has resulted in the situation where FIRA contributed test research work that proved the government's current match test in the Regulations doesn't work and its proposed new one does. Yet today FIRA claims there is nothing wrong with the current test and lies that the new one will require more not less flame retardants. Why? Well, the new match test would hugely reduce the use of flame retardants . . . In the meantime, people are dying in house fires that arise due to the fact the current match test doesn't work in more than 89% of cases. FIRA knows this and yet is actively preventing safety changes going through. As for their guide . . . I don't really want to go into all the details but let's just say it shows their lack of technical expertise. This also became apparent when the government went out to tender test houses for a new match test. The test house that won provided a coherent and well-argued new test (that was eventually taken up). FIRA not only could not come up with a new test, what they did present made little sense. But, as said, the government's guide badly needs amending too. Unfortunately, the Department for Business currently has no one working on these Regulations with any understanding of them, or desire to get them made safe. They went out to consultation in Sep. 2016, which included the new match test (once again!) but still have not issued a response. They had a couple of meetings in the consultation period to discuss the proposals, but almost everyone they invited was from the chemical industry or friends of FIRA who do not want change.

To Natalia: Unfortunately, you cannot be confident that furniture bought from Amazon UK is compliant with the UK Regs. Amazon sells furniture in the UK from outside the country and claims it can do so because it is not a retailer, it just acts as an agent for the e.g. Belgian retailer. Trading Standards challenged Amazon about this, pointing out that Amazon provides a guarantee and deals with any problems therefor it is a supplier; however, Amazon kept insisting that they are in effect not a supplier. Trading Standards paid for legal advice which concluded that Amazon, Ebay, etc, are in fact suppliers but this does not appear to have had any effect. Amazon did agree to remove a sofa that Trading Standards had focussed on but not by agreeing they were suppliers, i.e. they are still supplying plenty of other non-compliant bits of furniture. You are right to be concerned since a tenant could of course sue you if there was a fire in a sofa/mattress that you supplied that does not comply with the UK Regs. This is because as a landlord, you are a supplier under the regulations. Natalia Spzoo is correct to say that they can supply non-compliant furniture to the UK if they are supplying direct to a UK consumer from their base in Poland. However, if they are supplying in the UK via Amazon UK then Trading Standards at least is of the view that their products must comply. They are also correct to state that standards are voluntary. However, the UK Regs are not standards, they're legislation and therefore are not voluntary; they're compulsory. I note that they don't mention the fact that there is an EN standard for furniture flammability - match and cigarette test - but as far as we know no EU manufacture complies with the match test; some do with the cigarette test, mainly because that can be achieved without the use of flame retardant chemicals. It might be worth asking them if Amazon UK is their UK retailer (although I suspect they're aware of the dangers of answering that).

Tom said: I fully accept that consumers are not subject to the regulations but when you read "Suppliers affected" in the above document nowhere does it say private individuals, who are not businesses, are subject either. Could you please point me to where I could get clarification. I'm not clear what you mean by 'private individuals'. However, the Department for Business has been clear about who needs to comply, i.e anyone who supplies furniture (to someone else). This means, for example, furniture retailers in the UK or landlords supplying to their tenants. But they don't apply to someone who has bought the furniture for their own use. Therefore, you or I can buy say a sofa from Germany which does not comply with the UK regs; that's perfectly legal. But we cannot later sell it on within the UK to another consumer.

Sorry, I should clarify. FIRA used to be in effect a government agency. That was a long time ago. They are now a commercial organisation - a test house and a furniture association trade body. However, they like people to think they are some sort of official body. They aren't. Their guide to the Furniture Regulations was not approved by the government (despite FIRA trying to get it approved). Despite its faults, you're better off referring to the government's guide to the Regs: https://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/prevention/furnitureguide.pdf. The reason I'd be wary of FIRA is a) because in recent years, they have become ruthlessly commercial and b) their testing expertise and knowledge has declined considerably (probably due to focussing more on other commercial interests) - in my view, I should add.

First of all, they are not 'FIRA Regs'. FIRA is a commercial test house that also acts as a furniture trade association. And its guide to the Regs was not approved by the government. So, while the government guide is not perfect, you're better off referring to that; one place to access it: https://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pages/prevention/furnitureguide.pdf. The situation with charities is complicated. The government guide to the Regulations states that furniture must comply if the charity is providing it in the way of business, e.g. selling it in a charity shop. It says that if it's being given away by a charity, or for just a small fee, it probably does not have to comply. In practice though - and perhaps because over the years people have become more litigious - charities are reluctant to even give away furniture that does not carry the permanent label.