General information, not legal advice. Emergency numbers checked October 2026.
Most welcome guides cover the Wi-Fi and the bins in detail and say little about what to do if the carbon monoxide alarm sounds or a pipe bursts at midnight. The holiday let guest information checker works through everything guests may need, from the check-in code to the stopcock, and lists what your guide is missing with what a complete entry includes. It also turns your details into a one-page emergency sheet with the right numbers for your nation.
How to use the guest information checker
- Choose the nation your holiday let is in and tick what the property has, such as gas or a wood burner. Items that don't apply drop out of the list.
- Open your welcome guide, or welcome book, and mark each item covered, missing or not needed.
- Fill in the details for the emergency sheet: the address, your number and where the stopcock, fuse box and first aid kit are.
- Print the list of what to add, then print the emergency sheet and leave it somewhere guests will see it, such as inside a kitchen cupboard door or by the front door.
See what your welcome guide is missing and print an emergency sheet
Choose the nation your holiday let is in to see the checklist.
Your emergency sheet
A worked example
Say your cottage in Wales has an oil boiler, a wood burner and a parking space, and your welcome guide covers the Wi-Fi, heating, check-in, check-out, bins and house rules. You mark those covered and everything else missing.
The checker shows the guide covers 6 of 20 items, and that 9 of the missing ones are about safety, starting with how to call the emergency services and what to do if there is a fire. Each one comes with what to include. The emergency sheet lists 999 or 112, 111, 101 and 105, your address and number, and where the stopcock and fuse box are.
Why the emergency sheet sits apart from the welcome guide
A guest who smells gas or hears an alarm at two in the morning won't scroll through a 20-page guide or a link in a booking message. A single printed page in a fixed place gives them the number to call, the address to read out and where to turn things off, in the order they need them. Put it where it can be found in the dark, and mention where it is in your check-in message.
The address matters more than it seems. Rural holiday lets often share a postcode with several properties, so a line on how to find the entrance saves an ambulance crew time.
What a complete entry looks like
An entry that says "Wi-Fi details are on the router" answers the first question and leaves the next one. A complete entry gives the network name and password, says where the router is, and tells guests what to try before they message you, such as switching it off for a minute. The checker's notes for each item follow the same idea: what the guest needs to know, where to find it, and what to do if it doesn't work.
The same goes for access. The holiday let check-in message sequence that prevents most access problems covers how to send the access details before arrival; the welcome guide then holds the details guests need once they're inside.
Scotland: guest information is a licence condition
In Scotland, a short-term let licence requires you to make certain information available in the property: a certified copy of the licence and its conditions, fire, gas and electrical safety information, how to call the emergency services, copies of the gas safety report, EICR and PAT report, and what to do if the carbon monoxide alarm sounds. Choose Scotland in the checker and these appear as one item, with the licence conditions in Schedule 3 as the source.
What the checker leaves out
The checker can't read your guide, so it relies on how you mark each item; checking each entry against the notes is what catches the thin ones. It doesn't cover anything your platform asks for in its own guidebook feature, or accessibility information for disabled guests, which is worth adding as a separate section. Nothing you enter is saved or sent anywhere, so print or copy your results before you close the page.
Checking the guide at each changeover
Keep a copy of the emergency sheet in your holiday let compliance file and check the printed one is still in place at each changeover, along with the first aid kit and fire blanket. When something does go wrong mid-stay, a guest who already knows where the stopcock and fuse box are can act quickly; what to do when a holiday let guest reports a fault mid-stay covers the steps from there.