The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person for any non-domestic premises to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment and keep it under review. The Fire Safety Act 2021 extended this to include external walls and flat entrance doors in residential buildings.
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The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 introduced additional requirements including regular fire door checks, resident information provisions and checks of firefighting facilities. For buildings of 18 metres or more, quarterly fire door checks and submission of building information to the fire service are also required.
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The Building Safety Act 2022 created the Building Safety Regulator and introduced new legal duties on accountable persons and principal designers. Higher risk buildings must be registered and owners must demonstrate active management of fire and structural safety throughout the building lifecycle.
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The law is changing and the duties it creates are real. Understanding what applies to your building and your role is the starting point. That is where we can help.
Fire Safety Law in 2025
Fire safety legislation in the UK has undergone significant change in recent years. The Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 exposed fundamental failures in how buildings were designed, built, managed and regulated. The legislative response has been substantial and the duties placed on building owners, managers and designers are now more demanding and more enforceable than at any point in the past.
Understanding what the law requires is the starting point for managing fire safety responsibly.
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The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
The RRO remains the primary piece of fire safety legislation for non-domestic premises and the common parts of residential buildings. It places a duty on the responsible person to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, implement appropriate fire safety measures and keep the assessment under review.
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The responsible person is typically the employer, the owner or the person in control of the premises. In residential buildings with multiple occupancies, there may be more than one responsible person and the duties between them must be clearly understood and allocated.
The Fire Safety Act 2021 amended the RRO to clarify that the external walls, flat entrance doors and structures and fixtures in the common parts of a building containing two or more sets of domestic premises fall within scope. This closed a significant gap in the original legislation and brought external wall systems and flat entrance fire doors firmly within the responsible person's duties.
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The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022
The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 introduced additional requirements for responsible persons in residential buildings, including monthly checks of fire doors in common areas, annual checks of flat entrance doors, provision of fire safety information to residents and regular checks of firefighting lifts and other facilities for the fire service.
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For high rise residential buildings of 18 metres or more, additional requirements apply including quarterly checks of fire doors, installation of wayfinding signage, provision of building information boxes for the fire service and submission of building information to the fire service.
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The Building Safety Act 2022
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced the most significant structural reform to building safety regulation since the current system was established. It created the Building Safety Regulator, introduced a new regulatory regime for higher risk buildings and placed new duties on accountable persons, principal accountable persons and principal designers.
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Higher risk buildings are currently defined as residential buildings of 18 metres or more, or seven or more storeys, containing at least two dwellings. These buildings must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator and their owners must demonstrate that fire and structural safety is being actively managed throughout the building lifecycle.
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The Act also strengthened enforcement powers, extended limitation periods for construction defect claims and introduced the new homes ombudsman scheme.
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Approved Document B
Approved Document B provides the technical guidance for meeting the fire safety requirements of the Building Regulations in England. It covers means of escape, fire spread, structural fire resistance, access for the fire service and fire detection and alarm systems.
Compliance with Approved Document B is not the only way to meet the Building Regulations. Performance based fire engineering approaches can be used where the prescriptive guidance does not fit the building or the design, provided the alternative approach can be demonstrated to achieve an equivalent level of safety.
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PAS 9980:2022
PAS 9980 is the code of practice for fire risk appraisals of external wall construction in existing blocks of flats. It provides the framework for assessing the fire risk associated with external wall systems and cladding and for producing the EWS1 form required by mortgage lenders and insurers.
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The Golden Thread
The Building Safety Act introduced the concept of the golden thread of building information. For higher risk buildings, the accountable person is required to hold, maintain and keep current a defined set of safety critical information about the building throughout its lifecycle. This includes the fire strategy, as built drawings, details of materials and systems, and records of inspections, assessments and remedial works.
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The golden thread is not simply a document management exercise. It is a legal requirement that the information exists, is accurate and is accessible to those who need it.
What this means in practice
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The cumulative effect of these legislative changes is that building owners, managers and designers face a more demanding and more enforceable set of obligations than ever before. Ignorance of the law is not a defence. Failure to comply carries criminal liability, civil exposure and reputational risk.
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The starting point is understanding what the law requires of you specifically, for your building and your role. That is where we can help.