Second hand sofas no fire safety label?

[Guest Clare3]

I purchased 2 second hand, reupholstered sofas from a private seller. They do not appear to have fire safety labels. My question is, is this illegal? 

[Tom Sutton]

It is a mute point whether a private seller is subject to Fire safety of furniture and furnishings in the home A Guide to the UK Regulations but I believe he/she does therefore the sale is illegal, try reporting it to the https://www.gov.uk/find-local-trading-standards-office see what they have to say.

[green-foam]

I feel I should point out that as a private individual it seems you can sell a sofa with no fire safety label, solely because you are a private individual. Merseyside firebrigade say so.

Quote

The Regulations apply to anyone supplying old or new furniture in the course of a business

It clearly states business, it then goes onto say

They do not apply when furniture is simply given away or sold by private individuals.

Taken from the official merseyside fire brigade page Here

[Tom Sutton]

That is a reasonable interpretation of the regulations but it could be argued that is fine when you are acquiring it (buying it) not when you are selling it.

The problem is that it is badly written and composed, that is why they are revising it but taking their time to implement it, why?  

[FRFree]

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.

 

[Guest Naggy]

Can I get a good quality sofa (no label) tested and so acquire a fire safe label in order to give it to a homeless charity?

 

[green-foam]

Fire testing of furniture is a very rigorous and expensive procedure and often costs more than the single item being tested, so it would be cheaper to buy a new item of furniture and give that away. Also, after rigorous fire testing the item will be severely burnt (Due to how it will be tested) writing the item off.

But if you are a private individual, there is nothing stopping you from selling it to another private individual, so long as you do not turn this into a business.