Fire Risk Assessments: What Every Leaseholder in a Dorset Block Should Know

Fire safety in residential blocks has never been more prominent on the national agenda. Since the Grenfell Tower tragedy in 2017, successive pieces of legislation, guidance, and regulation have transformed the obligations placed on those responsible for managing residential buildings. At the centre of that framework, for every block in England and Wales, is the Fire Risk Assessment.

For leaseholders in Dorset — particularly those living in Victorian conversions along Boscombe and Charminster Road, post-war purpose-built blocks on the Bournemouth seafront, or older mansion blocks in the Poole and Sandbanks area — understanding what a Fire Risk Assessment is, who is responsible for it, and what happens when it lapses is not merely useful. It is essential.

Fire Risk Assessments and the Legal Framework

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places a legal obligation on the “responsible person” — in a residential block, typically the freeholder, Resident Management Company, or management company — to carry out a suitable and sufficient Fire Risk Assessment (FRA) and to act on its findings. This obligation was significantly extended by the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022, which clarified that the FRA must cover the structure, external walls, and flat entrance doors of the building, not only the common parts.

The FRA is not a document that can be filed and forgotten. It is a living record of the fire safety condition of your building.

Q: What is a Fire Risk Assessment and who is responsible for commissioning one?

A Fire Risk Assessment is a systematic evaluation of a building’s fire hazards, the people at risk, and the adequacy of the existing fire safety measures. It must be carried out by a competent person — in practice, for any block of meaningful complexity, this means a qualified fire safety professional rather than the managing agent alone.

Responsibility for commissioning and acting on the FRA sits with the responsible person under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. In a block managed by Rebbeck Brothers, we coordinate the commissioning of FRAs on behalf of our clients, ensure they are carried out by suitably qualified assessors, and maintain a schedule of review and follow-up action.

Q: What must an FRA cover?

A compliant FRA for a residential block must assess: the common areas of the building including corridors, stairwells, lobbies, plant rooms, and bin stores; the structure and external walls, including any cladding or render; flat entrance doors, which must be assessed for compliance with fire resistance standards; means of escape, including the adequacy and clarity of escape routes; fire detection and alarm systems; emergency lighting; fire-fighting equipment; and the adequacy of management arrangements for fire safety.

Following the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, additional obligations apply to blocks over 11 metres in height, including monthly checks on fire doors to communal areas and annual checks on flat entrance doors.

Q: How often must an FRA be reviewed?

There is no single prescribed review interval in the legislation — the requirement is that the FRA must be reviewed whenever there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid, or when there has been a significant change in the matters to which it relates. In practice, industry guidance and the RICS Residential Management Code indicate that a formal review should be carried out at least every twelve months for higher-risk or complex buildings, and every one to three years for simpler lower-rise blocks, dependent on findings.

A lapsed or outdated FRA — one that has not been reviewed following material changes to the building or the passage of significant time — is not only a legal risk for the responsible person; it is a practical risk to the people who live in the building.

Q: What are the particular challenges facing Dorset’s coastal building stock?

Dorset’s building stock presents specific challenges for fire safety that are less acute elsewhere. The region has a disproportionately high concentration of Victorian and Edwardian conversions — large detached houses divided into flats, typically with original timber floors, timber staircases, and limited or no original fire compartmentation. These buildings were not designed with flat conversion in mind, and their structural characteristics mean that fire can spread through voids and inadequately separated spaces with considerable speed.

Older purpose-built blocks from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s — common along the Bournemouth and Poole seafronts — were built to standards that no longer reflect current fire safety expectations. The combination of ageing electrical systems, legacy materials, and the transient occupancy patterns characteristic of coastal holiday and short-let properties adds further complexity.

Q: What is the link between fire doors and compartmentation?

Fire doors are the physical embodiment of compartmentation — the principle that a building should be divided into fire-resisting cells that contain a fire for long enough to allow occupants to escape. In a residential block, a fire door that does not close fully, has a damaged intumescent strip, or has been propped open has, in practical terms, partially negated the compartmentation of that section of the building.

Rebbeck Brothers works with My Fire Door, a specialist fire door inspection service, to ensure that fire doors across our managed portfolio are inspected, recorded, and maintained to the required standard. This relationship allows us to manage fire door compliance as a scheduled programme rather than a reactive response to individual failures.

Q: What happens if an FRA lapses or its recommendations are not acted upon?

A responsible person who fails to have a current FRA, or who has an FRA whose significant findings have not been addressed, is exposed to enforcement action by the local fire and rescue service. That enforcement can take the form of an enforcement notice requiring remedial action within a specified period, a prohibition notice preventing use of part or all of the building, and in cases of serious and persistent non-compliance, prosecution.

Beyond the regulatory consequences, an inadequate fire safety record materially affects the ability to insure the building on competitive terms, to facilitate mortgage lending on flat sales within the block, and to obtain an EWS1 form where one is required.

Fire risk assessment is not a box-ticking exercise. For the leaseholders and managing agents responsible for residential blocks across Dorset and Hampshire, it is the cornerstone of a safe and legally compliant building. At Rebbeck Brothers, our management service treats fire safety as a continuous programme rather than a periodic event — because the alternative is not acceptable.