Property usage types explained

The three classification fields, ranked by importance

When you add a property, three fields look similar but behave very differently:

1. Property Usage — drives compliance. Pick carefully.
2. Accommodation Style — mostly informational, with one important exception (HMO).
3. Building Type — purely informational. Pick anything close.

Property Usage: the decisive field

Private

For private rented sector lets — the typical case for self-managing landlords. Mandatory compliance obligations PropFlow seeds:

• Gas Safety (CP12) — annual
• Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) — every 5 years
• Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) — every 10 years; rating must be E or above
• Right to Rent check — per tenant, per tenancy
• Tenancy Agreement
• Tenancy Deposit Protection
• How to Rent guide
• Government information sheet

Optional obligations you can add manually:

• Fire Risk Assessment
• Fire Detection System
• Emergency Lighting
• Legionella Risk Assessment
• Damp & Mould Assessment
• Asbestos Property Type (auto-added if Year Built < 2000)
• PAT (auto-added if Furnished toggle is on)

Social

For housing-association and RSL stock. Same base obligations as Private, plus these are mandatory:

• Fire Risk Assessment (annual)
• Fire Detection System (annual)
• Emergency Lighting
• Legionella Risk Assessment (every 2 years)
• Damp & Mould Assessment
• License Agreement (in place of Tenancy Agreement)

This reflects the higher regulatory baseline social housing operates under. If you're not a housing association or RSL, pick Private.

Accommodation Style: mostly informational, one exception

• House — informational. No compliance effect.
• Flat — informational. No compliance effect.
• Studio — informational. No compliance effect.
• HMO — Shared House — this one matters. Picking it does two things:
  1. Adds the HMO Licence obligation to your compliance list.
  2. Replaces the single Weekly Rent field with a per-room panel where you add each lettable room with size (m²), weekly rent, and flags (ensuite, off-suite, cooking facilities, couple-allowed, vacant).

When in doubt: if three or more unrelated tenants share kitchen or bathroom, it's an HMO. Switching a property in or out of HMO status later is possible but means redoing the room details.

Building Type: pure display

Apartment / Terraced House / End of Terrace / Semi-Detached / Detached / Studio / Mixed Commercial / Other.

This field doesn't drive any logic in PropFlow. It's used for display labels on property cards, PDFs, and referrals. Pick whichever is closest — you can change it later from the property's Details tab.

The two other inputs that affect compliance

On the same property-add screen, two other inputs change what gets seeded:

• Year Built < 2000 → adds Asbestos Property Type (APT) check.
• Furnished toggle on → adds Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) — annual.

Both can be toggled later from the property's Details tab.

What if I get the usage type wrong?

You can change it any time from the property's Details tab.

• Private → Social — PropFlow adds the social-housing mandatory obligations (Fire Risk, Legionella, etc.) to your compliance list.
• Social → Private — PropFlow leaves the existing obligations in place. Delete any that no longer apply manually.

Next steps

• Add your first property — the 4-step wizard, with field reference.
• The compliance dashboard explained — what to do with the obligations PropFlow seeds.
• Bulk-import properties (CSV) — for portfolios with several properties to add.