Landlord compliance

Fire Risk Assessment (Residential)

Compliant fire risk assessments for HMOs, flats, blocks and communal areas.

From £84 (inc VAT) Written assessment within 48 hours 12-month workmanship guarantee

Book this service 07426 409342

Starting from

£84inc VAT

studio apartment · communal areas from £139.99

Competent assessors experienced in London HMO licensing standards

Risk-rated action plan with realistic timescales, not a generic checklist

Written report within 48 hours

Assessed against LACORS — the standard your council actually applies

Book online

Overview

What is a Fire Risk Assessment certificate?

A Fire Risk Assessment is a structured survey of a building that identifies fire hazards, the people at risk, and the measures needed to reduce that risk to an acceptable level. It follows the recognised five-step method, examines means of escape, compartmentation, detection and warning, emergency lighting and management arrangements, and produces a written report with a prioritised action plan. For HMOs and any building with communal areas, holding a current, suitable and sufficient assessment is a legal requirement.

Why it matters

Why it's worth getting right

A Fire Risk Assessment is the document from which every other fire safety decision in a building flows — how many alarms you need and to what grade, whether emergency lighting is required, what fire doors must achieve, how people get out. Without one you are guessing, and after an incident the assessment is the first document the fire authority asks for. Since the Grenfell inquiry, enforcement in London has tightened considerably, and 'we didn't think it applied to us' is no longer treated as a mitigating explanation.

Your legal duty as the responsible person

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person — the landlord, freeholder or managing agent — to carry out and keep up to date a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the common parts of any building containing two or more sets of domestic premises, and of any HMO. Since the Fire Safety Act 2021 the assessment must expressly include the building's structure, external walls, cladding, balconies and flat entrance doors. Where five or more people are employed, or the premises is licensed, the significant findings must be recorded in writing. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 added further duties for buildings above 11 metres and for high-rise residential buildings. Failure to comply carries unlimited fines and up to two years' imprisonment.

Regulations & standards

The rules this work is carried out to

Every inspection we do is measured against a published standard — here are the ones that apply to this service.

RRO 2005

Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

Duty to carry out and maintain a suitable and sufficient assessment.

Fire Safety Act 2021

Clarifies scope to structure, external walls and flat entrance doors

Assessments must expressly cover these elements.

SI 2022/547

Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022

Additional duties for buildings over 11m and high-rise residential.

LACORS Guidance

Housing — fire safety guidance for existing residential accommodation

The benchmark used by councils for HMO and converted-flat standards.

In detail

Understanding your Fire Risk Assessment

The technical detail behind the certificate — what gets checked, what the results mean, and the decisions that actually affect your property.

The five steps of a fire risk assessment

The recognised methodology has five stages. First, identify fire hazards — sources of ignition, fuel and oxygen, from electrical installations and cooking to stored combustibles and smoking. Second, identify people at risk, giving particular attention to anyone who would struggle to evacuate unaided: elderly or disabled residents, children, and anyone sleeping in a room off a shared escape route. Third, evaluate the risk and decide whether existing precautions are adequate, removing or reducing hazards where possible. Fourth, record the significant findings, prepare an emergency plan and provide information and training. Fifth, review the assessment regularly and whenever anything material changes. A report that stops at step three — a list of hazards with no action plan — is not a completed assessment.

Compartmentation and why 'stay put' depends on it

Purpose-built blocks of flats are usually designed on a stay-put principle: each flat is a fire-resisting compartment, so a fire in one dwelling can be contained long enough for the fire service to attend without evacuating the whole building. That strategy only holds if compartmentation is intact — and in practice it very often is not. The breaches we find most frequently are unsealed service penetrations where cables, pipes or ducts pass through compartment walls and floors, gaps above suspended ceilings in communal corridors, damaged or missing intumescent seals on flat entrance doors, and holes left by contractors who ran a new cable and never made good. Any of these can allow smoke to travel from a flat into the escape route within minutes, which is precisely the scenario stay-put assumes cannot happen.

HMOs and the LACORS standard

Houses in Multiple Occupation attract the most demanding residential fire safety requirements because occupants sleep in separate rooms off a shared escape route, may not know each other, and cannot be relied on to raise the alarm for one another. The benchmark councils apply is the LACORS housing fire safety guidance, which sets expectations by building height and occupancy: typically a Grade A or Grade D interlinked alarm system, 30-minute fire-resisting construction to the escape route, self-closing FD30 doors to each bedroom and to any risk room, and emergency lighting where the escape route lacks adequate borrowed light. Requirements scale sharply with storey count — a three-storey HMO is treated very differently from a two-storey one, and that is where most licence disputes arise.

How often must an assessment be reviewed?

The Order requires the assessment to be kept up to date rather than repeated on a fixed calendar, but the accepted practice is a full review annually and a fresh assessment every three years for lower-risk residential buildings. More importantly, an assessment must be reviewed immediately whenever something material changes: building work or a change of layout, a change in occupancy or use, a new tenant with mobility or cognitive impairment, the addition of significant fuel loads such as bin stores or bike stores with lithium batteries, or a fire or near miss however minor. An assessment that no longer describes the building as it actually is offers no legal protection at all.

Lithium-ion batteries — the fastest-growing residential fire risk

E-bike and e-scooter batteries have become one of the most significant emerging fire risks in London residential buildings, and the London Fire Brigade now attends these fires at a rate that would have been unimaginable a few years ago. The danger is specific: a lithium-ion cell in thermal runaway ignites without warning, burns extremely fiercely, releases toxic gas and cannot be extinguished with a conventional extinguisher. The critical failure is charging or storing them in an escape route — a hallway, a communal corridor, a stairwell — which is exactly where residents naturally leave them. Our assessments explicitly address battery storage and charging, and where relevant we recommend policy wording you can add to tenancy agreements.

Warning signs

When you need an assessment — or a new one

Any of the following means your existing assessment is out of date or missing:

You own or manage a building with two or more flats and any shared area

The property is an HMO, whether licensed or not

Building work, a loft conversion or a layout change since the last assessment

A change of use, or a significant change in who lives there

A resident whose mobility or cognitive ability affects how they would escape

Bin stores, bike stores or e-bike charging introduced anywhere in the building

The last assessment is more than a year old, or you cannot find it at all

Any fire or near miss, however minor it seemed at the time

The risks

The consequences of not holding one

Fire safety is the enforcement area where penalties are most severe and most personal:

!Unlimited fines and up to two years' imprisonment for the responsible person

!Enforcement and prohibition notices that can stop the building being occupied

!HMO licence refused, conditioned or revoked

!Manslaughter prosecution where a death results from a failure to assess

!Buildings insurance void, with claims declined for want of an assessment

!Sales, remortgages and lease extensions stalled by missing documentation

!Personal liability that does not disappear behind a company structure

Keeping the assessment live

An assessment is a working document, not a certificate to file. Work through the action plan and record what has been done and when, because a plan with no evidence of completion is worse than no plan at all — it proves you knew. Carry out and log routine checks: weekly alarm tests, monthly emergency lighting functional tests, and regular walk-rounds of escape routes to confirm they are clear of bikes, buggies, bins and stored items. Review the assessment annually and immediately after any material change. Keep everything together in a fire safety log book that can be produced on the day a fire officer asks, rather than retrieved from a contractor's system a week later.

Why us

The benefits of booking your Fire Risk Assessment with us

Accredited, transparent and built around making compliance easy.

Competent assessors experienced in London HMO licensing standards

Risk-rated action plan with realistic timescales, not a generic checklist

Written report within 48 hours

Assessed against LACORS — the standard your council actually applies

Remedial work can be carried out by our own engineers, so nothing stalls

Log book template supplied so your routine checks are recorded properly

What's included

Everything covered in your Fire Risk Assessment

One all-inclusive price — here is exactly what the engineer does on site and what you receive afterwards.

Full five-step assessment by a competent, experienced assessor

Means of escape, travel distances and final exits reviewed

Compartmentation and fire door inspection, including flat entrance doors

Detection, warning and emergency lighting provision assessed against LACORS

External wall, balcony and structure considerations per the Fire Safety Act 2021

Lithium-ion battery storage and charging risk addressed

Written report with a risk-rated, prioritised action plan and timescales

Log book template and guidance on the routine checks you must record

Pricing

Simple, all-inclusive pricing

The price you see is the price you pay — VAT included, with no hidden call-out fees. Your final price depends on the size of your property; we'll confirm an exact, all-inclusive quote before we attend.

Fire Risk Assessment from

£84inc VAT

studio apartment · communal areas from £139.99

Get my exact price

All prices include VAT · 12-month workmanship guarantee

Fire Risk Assessment pricing — residential

Property type	Price (inc VAT)
Studio apartment	£84.00
1–3 Bedrooms	£149.99
4 Bedrooms	£189.99
5 Bedrooms	£199.99
6 Bedrooms	£259.99
7 Bedrooms	£309.99
8 Bedrooms	£359.99
Communal areas · 1–3 floors	£139.99
Communal areas · 3–6 floors	£159.99

All prices include VAT and a full written report with a prioritised action plan. Larger blocks and mixed-use buildings are priced on the commercial scale.

Prices are all-inclusive of VAT with no hidden call-out fees. Where they genuinely apply, parking (£5) and the London Congestion Charge (£18) are passed on at cost and always shown up front.

The process

How your appointment works

Simple, transparent and designed around you and your tenants.

Step 1

Building walk-through

The assessor surveys escape routes, compartmentation, doors, detection and emergency lighting throughout the building.

Step 2

Hazard and occupancy evaluation

Fire hazards are identified and the people at risk assessed, including anyone who would need help to evacuate.

Step 3

Written report and action plan

Significant findings are recorded with each action risk-rated and given a realistic timescale for completion.

Step 4

Remedials and review

We can carry out any work identified, and set a review date so the assessment never silently expires.

FAQs

Fire Risk Assessment — frequently asked questions

If your building contains two or more sets of domestic premises with any shared area, or is an HMO, then yes — the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to have a suitable and sufficient assessment and keep it up to date. A single self-contained house let to one household does not require one, though the smoke and CO alarm regulations still apply.

Review annually as standard practice, with a fresh assessment typically every three years for lower-risk residential buildings. More importantly, review immediately after any material change — building work, a change of occupancy, new fuel loads such as bike stores, or any fire or near miss.

For a block, the assessment covers the common parts plus the elements that protect them — most importantly flat entrance doors, which are now expressly within scope following the Fire Safety Act 2021. For an HMO, the assessment covers the whole property including bedrooms, because occupants sleep off a shared escape route.

You get a prioritised action plan, with each item risk-rated and given a timescale rather than a single undifferentiated list. We can carry out the remedial work ourselves — fire doors, alarms, emergency lighting, compartmentation sealing — so nothing stalls waiting for another contractor.

The law requires the assessment to be carried out by a competent person, and for anything beyond the simplest premises that means demonstrable training and experience. For an HMO or any building with communal areas, a self-assessment is very unlikely to be accepted by a council or a fire officer, and it will not protect you after an incident.

Yes, explicitly. Lithium-ion battery fires are among the fastest-growing residential fire risks in London. We assess where batteries are stored and charged — charging in an escape route is the critical failure — and can provide policy wording for your tenancy agreements.

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Book your Fire Risk Assessment today

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07426 409342

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