Fire Risk Assessments in Multi-Occupied Buildings: Navigating the Legislative Maze

Fire risk assessments in multi-occupied residential buildings -- houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), converted flats, purpose-built blocks -- are among the most complex inspections in the fire safety sector. Not because the technical fire safety issues are inherently more difficult, but because the legislative framework governing these buildings is fragmented, sometimes contradictory, and frequently misunderstood.

This article unpacks the key legislative overlaps, explains why "communal areas only" assessments are often inadequate, and offers practical guidance for assessors working in this challenging space.

The Legislative Framework

Three primary pieces of legislation govern fire safety in multi-occupied residential buildings in England and Wales, each with different scope, enforcement bodies, and responsible persons:

1. Fire Safety Legislation (the Regulatory Reform Order)

The fire safety order applies to the common parts of residential buildings -- stairways, corridors, lobbies, and to an extent the external fabric of the building. It is enforced by the Fire and Rescue Service.

Under this legislation, the responsible person must carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the areas within scope. This is an absolute duty -- there is no discretion about whether to do it.

2. Housing Legislation

The Housing Act and its associated Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS) covers the interior of individual dwellings -- the flats, bedsits, and rooms where people actually live. Fire is assessed under specific hazard categories within the rating system.

This is enforced by local authority environmental health officers, who may consult with the Fire and Rescue Service on higher-risk (Category 1) findings.

3. Management Regulations for HMOs

For properties classified as HMOs, additional management regulations impose duties on the manager of the property to take safety measures, including ensuring all means of escape from fire are maintained.

Note that the "manager" under HMO management regulations is not necessarily the same person as the "responsible person" under fire safety legislation. They may be, but they may equally be different entities.

Where the Legislation Collides

The problem becomes apparent when you consider a real-world scenario. Take a typical converted house in any major city: a ground floor flat leased by one company, a first floor flat leased by a different company, the freehold owned by a third party, and no appointed manager.

Under fire safety legislation, the fire risk assessment for the common parts covers approximately three square metres of shared hallway with two doors. That is the full extent of the "communal area."

But the actual fire risks in this building are overwhelmingly inside the flats themselves -- the cooking, the electrical installations, the furnishings, the occupants who may be sleeping when a fire starts.

Meanwhile:

- The flat entrance doors are the responsibility of the leaseholder (who must maintain them under the terms of the lease), but they also form part of the communal fire safety strategy
- The responsible person has duties under fire safety legislation for the common areas, but also has obligations regarding emergency escape routes that necessarily involve the flats
- The HMO manager (if one exists) must ensure means of escape -- but there may be no formally appointed manager

The result is a situation where multiple parties have overlapping but incomplete responsibilities, and the person carrying out the fire risk assessment is left trying to determine who is actually accountable for what.

Why "Communal Areas Only" Is Not Enough

A strict interpretation of fire safety legislation might suggest that the fire risk assessment need only cover the communal parts. In a small converted property, that might be a tiny hallway.

This approach is technically defensible in the narrowest legal sense, but it is professionally indefensible. Here is why:

The Risks Are Inside the Flats

The vast majority of fires in residential buildings start inside individual dwellings -- from cooking, electrical faults, smoking materials, candles, and portable heaters. A fire risk assessment that ignores these origins is assessing the consequences without understanding the causes.

Compartmentation Depends on the Flats

The fire safety strategy for the entire building depends on the compartmentation between flats and common areas. If the flat entrance doors are not fire-rated, if the internal walls have been breached by unauthorized modifications, if the fire stopping around service penetrations has been compromised -- the communal area assessment will not identify any of these issues.

Escape Routes Start Inside

Occupants begin their escape from inside their flat. If the route from their bed to the flat entrance door is compromised, it does not matter how well-maintained the communal corridor is.

Post-Incident Reviews Confirm This

Subsequent independent reviews and government reports have consistently identified that fire risk assessments for multi-occupied buildings are "frequently inadequate or not completed at all," and that fire safety information is often "not present or insufficient, which may mean that adequate fire risk assessment cannot be undertaken."

The Whole-Building Approach

The direction of travel in the industry -- driven by post-incident reviews and regulatory reform -- is firmly towards whole-building fire risk assessments for multi-occupied residential buildings. This means assessing:

- Individual dwellings: Flat entrance door condition, internal compartmentation, fire detection provision, escape routes within the flat
- Communal areas: Protected routes, emergency lighting, fire detection, signage, housekeeping
- Building fabric: External walls and cladding systems, compartment walls between flats and common areas, structural fire protection
- Building services: Gas, electrical, ventilation systems, and their penetrations through compartment elements
- Management arrangements: Who is responsible for what, how are maintenance and inspection regimes managed, are there gaps in responsibility

This is more work. It takes longer. It costs more. But it produces a risk assessment that actually reflects the fire safety reality of the building rather than an artificial slice of it.

Practical Guidance for Assessors

1. Establish the Responsible Person(s) Before You Start

In multi-occupied buildings, there may be multiple responsible persons, managers, leaseholders, and freeholders. Map out the ownership and management structure before beginning your assessment. If there is ambiguity (and there often is), document it clearly in your report.

2. Assess the Whole Building

Regardless of the strict legal scope of your instruction, apply professional judgement. If you are engaged to assess the common parts but you can see that the flat entrance doors are non-fire-rated domestic doors, you have a professional obligation to flag this -- even if it is technically outside your remit.

3. Document Legislative Overlap

Where responsibilities are unclear or split between multiple parties, your report should clearly state:

- What legislation applies to which parts of the building
- Who the responsible person is for each area
- Where gaps in responsibility exist
- What actions are needed and who should take them

4. Request Access to Individual Flats Where Possible

The most valuable information in a multi-occupied building risk assessment comes from inside the dwellings. Where access can be arranged (and it should be actively pursued), inspect:

- Flat entrance door condition, certification, gaps, seals, and closer function
- Internal fire detection provision
- Obvious compartmentation breaches (removed walls, new openings)
- General fire safety housekeeping

5. Consider the Building's Age and Conversion History

Converted buildings -- particularly Victorian and Edwardian houses that have been divided into flats -- present specific challenges:

- Original construction may not include any fire-resistant compartmentation between units
- Conversions may have been carried out under older or less stringent building regulations
- Subsequent modifications by individual occupiers or owners may have further compromised whatever fire safety provisions existed
- Service installations (gas, water, electrical) may have been added over decades without proper fire stopping

6. Flag Missing Fire Safety Information

For buildings constructed, converted, or significantly altered in recent decades, fire safety information should have been provided to the responsible person upon completion. In practice, this documentation is frequently missing.

If it is absent, your report should note this explicitly, as its absence may mean that a fully adequate fire risk assessment cannot be completed -- you are working without knowledge of the fire engineering assumptions that underpin the building's design.

The Competence Question

All of this raises important questions about competence. Fire risk assessment in multi-occupied buildings requires:

- Understanding of fire safety legislation and its interaction with housing legislation
- Knowledge of compartmentation, passive fire protection, and fire door specifications
- Ability to assess building construction types and their fire performance
- Understanding of fire detection and alarm system design
- Professional judgement to navigate ambiguous responsibility structures

This is specialist work. A fire risk assessment of a converted HMO or a block of flats is not a commodity service -- it requires knowledge, experience, and the willingness to look beyond the minimum legal scope to address the actual risks.

Conclusion

The legislative framework for fire safety in multi-occupied residential buildings is imperfect. Responsibility is fragmented, scope is debated, and the gap between what the law strictly requires and what professional practice demands is significant.

As assessors, our duty is to the safety of the building's occupants -- the relevant persons who are exposed to fire risk. A fire risk assessment that covers three square metres of empty hallway while ignoring the dwellings where people sleep, cook, and live is an assessment in name only.

The industry is moving towards whole-building assessment, clearer responsibility frameworks, and higher standards of competence. Assessors who are already working to these standards are ahead of the curve. Those who are not should consider whether their current approach truly reflects the risks in the buildings they assess.