A question we are asked regularly after a right to manage acquisition: now that the RTM company runs the block, who is legally responsible for fire safety - the company, the freeholder, or the managing agent?
Where an RTM company has taken over responsibility for the common parts, it will usually be the responsible person for those areas under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Its duties include a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the common parts, keeping it under review, maintaining general fire precautions and recording significant findings. The Fire Safety Act 2021 confirmed that the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors are within scope. Appointing a managing agent or fire risk assessor helps the company discharge the duty competently but does not transfer it. Higher-risk buildings carry additional duties under the Building Safety Act 2022.
Fire safety responsibility in a block of flats is allocated by control, not by title. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, the duty falls on the "responsible person", and in a residential block that generally means the person or body in control of the premises so far as the common parts are concerned.
Where an RTM company has acquired the right to manage and has taken over responsibility for the common parts, it will usually be the responsible person for those areas. The individual flats behind their front doors are generally outside the Order's scope, although the front doors themselves, the structure and the common escape routes are very much within it.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 confirmed that, where a building contains two or more sets of domestic premises, the Order applies to the building's structure, external walls, including things attached to them such as cladding and balconies, and to flat entrance doors.
This is the point boards most often get wrong. Appointing a competent managing agent, or instructing a fire risk assessor, is a way of discharging the duty properly. It is not a way of transferring it. The Order can treat more than one person as having duties, and a person who has control to any extent can carry responsibility to that extent, but the RTM company does not stop being responsible because it has hired someone.
Practically, that means directors should be able to answer three questions at any time: when was the fire risk assessment last reviewed, what actions remain outstanding, and who is doing them by when.
The core obligations are to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the common parts, to keep it under review, to put in place and maintain general fire precautions, and to record the significant findings. In practice that translates into a familiar operational list: escape routes kept clear and usable; fire doors, including flat entrance doors, inspected and maintained; alarm and detection systems, emergency lighting and firefighting equipment serviced; signage and evacuation information appropriate to the building's strategy; contractor competence checked; and records kept.
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 added further duties in multi-occupied residential buildings, with more extensive requirements for high-rise residential buildings, including information for residents, provision of information to fire and rescue services, and checks on fire doors and equipment. What applies to a particular block depends on its height and configuration, so this is one area where generic advice is genuinely unsafe.
For buildings that fall within the higher-risk category under the Building Safety Act 2022, there is an additional and separate regime, with accountable persons, a principal accountable person, registration with the Building Safety Regulator, a safety case and duties to engage residents. An RTM company that manages such a building will normally have accountable person duties and should take specialist advice early. These obligations sit alongside, not instead of, the Fire Safety Order.
Keep a current fire risk assessment with a live, dated action plan. Put the outstanding actions on every board agenda. Use assessors and contractors whose competence you have actually checked. Enforce the escape route and storage rules consistently, including with residents who object. Record decisions, including decisions to defer work and why. Budget for remedial actions rather than discovering them at year end. And do not let a change of managing agent break the chain: the fire risk assessment and its outstanding actions should be among the first documents transferred.
The legal responsibility stays with the RTM company, but the inspection and record-keeping regime can be run by an agent. See our management service for RTM blocks.
If your RTM or RMC manages the building directly, our Self-Managed Block Fire Safety Checklist sets out the recurring checks, records and follow-up to keep organised.
Fire safety responsibility is shared operationally but not legally; what to do depends on your role.
Believing the managing agent has taken over the legal duty
Delegation is a way of discharging the duty competently, not a way of transferring it away from the company.
Filing the fire risk assessment and not working the action plan
An assessment with unaddressed significant findings is evidence of a known and unmanaged risk.
Treating storage in communal areas as a minor issue
Escape route obstruction is one of the most common and most avoidable failings in small blocks.
Assuming general guidance covers your building
Duties under the 2022 Regulations and the Building Safety Act depend on height and configuration; a generic checklist can miss them.
Most questions on this topic are management questions rather than legal ones, and the two are worth separating. A managing agent can tell you how something works day to day and what it will cost. A solicitor tells you what your rights are and how a Tribunal is likely to view them.
East Valley Properties provides management expertise, not legal advice. Where a matter turns on the wording of your lease or on formal proceedings, we will say so and work alongside your solicitor.
The official material behind this guide. We summarise it in plain English rather than reproducing it.
The responsible person duties, including the fire risk assessment.
Clarifies that structure, external walls and flat entrance doors are within scope.
Additional duties in multi-occupied residential buildings, with more for high-rise.
The higher-risk building regime and accountable person duties.
Government guidance for those managing blocks of flats.
Fire risk assessments, action logs and Building Safety Act duties managed as part of day-to-day block management rather than bolted on afterwards.
Answered by Romain Maillard - Director, East Valley Properties
Romain manages residential blocks and estates for RTM companies, residents' management companies, share of freehold developments and freeholders across East London and Essex.
Published · Updated
Based on the legislation and official guidance cited on this page.
General property management information, not legal or professional advice. Where a decision depends on an individual lease, building, dispute or technical assessment, obtain specialist advice. See our editorial standards.
This answer has been anonymised. Personal details, addresses and company names have been removed. Guidance is general and does not replace advice from a solicitor or surveyor on your specific block. East Valley Properties is a managing agent, not a firm of solicitors or legal advisers.
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