This is the question we are asked more than almost any other. It comes from managing agents juggling multiple clients, from freeholders who are not sure where their obligations end, and from commercial tenants who have just received an enforcement notice and are not sure why it applies to them. The short answer is that in a multi-tenant building, more than one person is usually legally responsible — and each of them is accountable for their own area of control, regardless of what anyone else is or is not doing.

This article explains the legal framework, sets out who is responsible for what, and highlights the areas where confusion is most likely to arise.

The Legal Foundation: the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005

Fire safety law in England and Wales is governed principally by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — known as the FSO. It replaced a patchwork of earlier legislation with a single risk-based regime and introduced the concept of the "responsible person": the individual or organisation with a legal duty to manage fire safety in a given premises.

Article 3 of the FSO defines the responsible person as the employer, where the premises is a workplace, or otherwise the person who has control of the premises in connection with carrying on a trade, business or other undertaking. In a building with multiple occupants, this almost always means there is more than one responsible person, each with duties over the area they control.

The FSO does not assign responsibility to a single person and let everyone else off the hook. Each party with control over a part of the building has legal duties over that part. The fact that others also have duties is not a defence against enforcement action.

The legislation was significantly reinforced by the Building Safety Act 2022, which introduced new duties for higher-risk buildings — those of at least 18 metres or seven storeys with two or more residential units — and created the Building Safety Regulator. Even buildings that do not meet that threshold are affected indirectly, as the Act raised expectations across the sector and prompted more active enforcement.

Who Is Responsible for What

It helps to think of the building in layers. The structure and common areas form one layer; individual tenancies or demised units form another. Different parties control different layers, and the FSO attaches responsibility accordingly.

The freeholder or building owner

Responsible for the structure and all common areas The freeholder is typically responsible for everything outside the demised areas: the structure of the building, common parts such as lobbies, corridors, stairwells and plant rooms, and the fire safety systems that serve those areas. In practice this covers the fire risk assessment for the common areas, the fire alarm system, emergency lighting on shared escape routes, fire doors in communal spaces, compartmentation between floors, and the overall evacuation strategy. Where the freeholder delegates day-to-day management to an agent, that delegation does not transfer the legal liability.

The managing agent

Often a responsible person in their own right Managing agents occupy a pivotal position in most multi-tenant buildings. They commission fire risk assessments, arrange maintenance contracts, manage the fire door inspection programme and communicate with tenants. Because they exercise day-to-day control over the common parts, they almost always share the status of responsible person with the freeholder — regardless of what the management contract says. The FSO is a statutory instrument and is not constrained by private contractual arrangements. If an agent controls a fire safety measure, they bear responsibility for it.

Commercial tenants

Responsible for fire safety within their own demise Each business occupying its own unit is a responsible person for that unit. This means commissioning a fire risk assessment for their own space, ensuring staff receive adequate fire safety training, managing ignition sources and fire load, and maintaining any fire safety equipment within their demise. What commercial tenants do not normally control — and therefore are not normally responsible for — is the building-wide fire alarm, common area escape routes, or communal fire doors, unless the lease assigns those duties to them.

Residential tenants

Limited but real obligations In blocks of flats, HMOs and serviced apartments, tenants must keep escape routes clear, avoid tampering with fire safety equipment, use appliances safely and report faults. They are not responsible for maintaining the fire alarm system, inspecting communal fire doors, or commissioning a fire risk assessment. Those duties rest with whoever controls the building.

HMO licence holders

Additional obligations under licensing law The HMO licence holder — whether the landlord directly or a managing agent — has specific obligations beyond the general FSO framework. They must ensure fire alarms are fitted and maintained, escape routes are adequate and kept clear, fire doors are installed where required, emergency lighting serves the escape routes, and communal areas are properly managed. Local councils actively enforce these duties and will inspect for compliance.

Responsibility by Area

The following table sets out who typically holds responsibility for each part of a multi-tenant building. Lease terms can alter this picture, and a current fire risk assessment should resolve any ambiguity specific to your building.

Area	Typically responsible	Notes
Structure & external walls	Freeholder	Post-2022, explicitly includes cladding systems
Common lobbies, corridors, stairwells	Freeholder / Managing Agent	Day-to-day management usually with the agent
Fire doors in common areas	Freeholder / Managing Agent	Regular inspection required under the Fire Safety Act 2021
Fire doors to individual flats	Freeholder / Leaseholder	Depends on lease terms — a frequent source of dispute
Building-wide fire alarm	Freeholder / Managing Agent	Even where zones serve individual units
Emergency lighting in common areas	Freeholder / Managing Agent	Monthly function tests; annual full duration test
Commercial units (demised areas)	Commercial Tenant	Tenant responsible for FRA within their own demise
Plant rooms & shared services	Freeholder / Managing Agent	Often overlooked; can present significant ignition risk
HMO communal areas	HMO Licence Holder	Subject to local authority licensing conditions

Shared Responsibility Is Not Split Responsibility

Multiple parties holding legal responsibility does not mean the duties can be divided neatly and then forgotten. The FSO requires responsible persons who share a building to co-operate and co-ordinate their fire safety measures. Any changes to the building — a tenant fitting a new partition wall, creating a new storage room, or blocking what was previously an escape route — must be communicated and assessed, because they can alter the risk profile of the entire building.

Regulators can and do take enforcement action against multiple parties simultaneously. A managing agent served with an enforcement notice for failing to maintain common area fire doors cannot point to a commercial tenant's separate breach as any kind of defence — and vice versa. Each responsible person is fully accountable for their own area of control.

The Areas Where Confusion Most Commonly Arises

Across the buildings we assess in Chester, Cheshire, Merseyside and North Wales, the same friction points appear repeatedly.

Fire doors to individual flats

In many leasehold arrangements, the entrance door to a flat forms part of the building's passive fire protection system, but the leaseholder treats it as their own door. Whether the freeholder or the leaseholder is responsible for maintaining it depends on lease terms — but the Fire Safety Act 2021 placed new duties on the responsible person to inspect those doors at least annually in buildings of eleven or more storeys, and at least every three months in taller buildings.

Alarm systems covering both common areas and individual units

Mixed-use buildings where a single addressable system serves a ground-floor commercial tenant and residential floors above are a regular source of confusion. Who pays for maintenance? Who responds to faults? Who is responsible when a zone fault goes unattended? These questions need clear answers before a problem arises, not after.

Tenant alterations not reported to the managing agent

A new partition wall, a new storage room, a blocked escape route — any tenant alteration can change the risk profile of the entire building. The responsible person's fire risk assessment needs to reflect the building as it actually is. An assessment carried out before a significant alteration is, in effect, an assessment of a different building.

What a Good Fire Risk Assessment Does in a Multi-Tenant Building

A fire risk assessment for a multi-tenant building should do considerably more than list hazards and assign them a risk rating. It should set out clearly who controls each part of the building, who is responsible for each fire safety measure, and what each tenant's obligations are. Where there is ambiguity — and there almost always is — the assessment should resolve it rather than leave it unaddressed.

It should also be reviewed whenever there is a material change to the building or its use. A new commercial tenant, a change of use on one floor, a major refurbishment, an alteration to the alarm system — any of these can change the risk picture significantly and should trigger a review. If your assessment is more than two years old and the building has changed, it is almost certainly out of date.

What This Means in Practice

If you are a managing agent or freeholder, the starting point is a current, professionally produced fire risk assessment for all common areas, a structured fire door inspection programme, and clear records of all maintenance and testing. You also need a documented process for onboarding new tenants that makes their obligations explicit, and a mechanism for tracking any alterations they make to their demise.

If you are a commercial tenant, you need your own fire risk assessment for your unit, fire safety training for your staff, and a clear understanding of which elements of the building's fire safety systems fall within your responsibility. If your lease is ambiguous, it is worth clarifying now rather than waiting for an enforcement notice to prompt the conversation.

If you are an HMO landlord or licence holder, local authority inspection is a real and increasing prospect. The documentation needs to be in order and the physical measures — alarms, fire doors, emergency lighting — need to be properly maintained.

We work with all three groups regularly across Chester, Cheshire, Merseyside, the Wirral and North Wales. If you are uncertain about where your responsibilities begin and end, please get in touch.

We carry out fire risk assessments and fire door inspections for multi-tenant buildings across Chester, the North West and North Wales — including residential blocks, commercial premises and HMOs. If you are not confident that responsibilities in your building are clearly defined and properly managed, please get in touch.

Not sure where your fire safety responsibilities begin and end?

We provide thorough, professionally qualified fire risk assessments and fire door inspections for multi-tenant buildings across Chester, the North West and North Wales.

Disclaimer: This article provides general guidance on fire safety responsibilities in multi-tenant buildings in England and Wales. It does not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as a substitute for a professionally conducted fire risk assessment or specialist legal advice. Responsibilities vary depending on building type, layout, occupancy, lease terms and applicable legislation. Fletcher Risk Management Ltd accepts no liability for decisions made on the basis of this content. Always consult a competent, qualified professional in relation to your specific premises. Fletcher Risk Management is based in Chester and provides fire risk assessments, fire door inspections and fire safety training across the North West and North Wales. © Fletcher Risk Management Ltd, April 2026.