Commercial Property
Fire Safety for Commercial Property
Fire safety consultancy for commercial property covers offices, retail, industrial and mixed-use buildings. RiSKFiX provides assessments, compartmentation surveys and remedial project management for landlords and facilities teams.
What are your duties?
- Current fire risk assessment for every workplace
- Every Responsible Person must record the fire risk assessment and fire safety arrangements in full
- Fire-resisting construction maintained between tenancies and through service voids
- Tested and documented fire-detection, alarm and emergency lighting systems
How does RiSKFiX help?
- FRAs across single sites and national portfolios with consistent output
- Pre-acquisition and dilapidations-stage fire-safety surveys
- Compartmentation surveys above suspended ceilings and through risers
- Independent oversight of fire-alarm and emergency-lighting commissioning
Which standards apply?
- The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (as amended)
- BS 9999:2017
- BS 8214:2026
- BS 5839-1:2025
- Approved Document B (2019 edition incorporating 2026 amendments)
Who is responsible across commercial premises?
The Order applies in England and Wales to almost all non-domestic premises. In a workplace, the Responsible Person is the employer; otherwise it is the person in control or the owner. Commercial landlords, occupiers and facilities teams should establish their own position rather than assume that commissioning a survey transfers responsibility. The Responsible Person may appoint a competent assessor but remains responsible. Take advice on your own situation; this page explains the law in general terms.
What records are needed beyond significant findings?
Every Responsible Person must record their fire risk assessment and fire safety arrangements in full. Since 1 October 2023, the Building Safety Act 2022 has required this full record regardless of employee numbers. Fire risk assessments assess risk and provide priority-rated actions. Inspection and survey reports record findings, with the Responsible Person deciding what to do alongside their Fire Risk Assessor. Keep those decisions connected to the assessment and supporting records.
How do changes between tenancies affect fire safety?
Changes in use, building alterations and service work can give reason to review an existing assessment. Compartmentation surveys above suspended ceilings and through risers help document findings in areas affected by services. RiSKFiX also provides pre-acquisition and dilapidations-stage surveys and oversight of fire-alarm and emergency-lighting commissioning. These services support decisions about a building, while a fire strategy explains how its fire safety design works, including means of escape, compartmentation, detection, smoke control and firefighter access.
How should you prepare for a scoped visit?
Explain the building’s use, layout, occupied areas and access arrangements, including any need for out-of-hours visits. Provide previous assessments, a fire strategy if available, floor plans and test and maintenance records. Where destructive inspection is proposed, consider asbestos risks before opening up. These details help scope the assessment around the premises rather than treating every office, retail unit or industrial building as the same assignment.
What else should you know?
- Yes — we provide pre-acquisition fire-safety surveys with budget-cost remediation estimates that feed directly into your investment model.
- PAS 79-1:2020 is the code of practice for fire risk assessments in premises other than housing. RiSKFiX provides assessments in that format for commercial property.
- No. Review regularly and whenever significant changes or concerns about validity arise. The assessment should set its own review date, and reviews should be recorded.
- Yes. A retrospective fire strategy can be produced where an existing building has none, and can include compartmentation plans explaining the building’s fire safety design.
- Send the address, use, floors, approximate floor area, previous assessment and deadline. Existing strategy documents, floor plans and maintenance records help explain the scope and access requirements.