Fire Door Regulations in London: What Responsible Persons Must Do

If you are the responsible person for a residential building in London, fire door checks stopped being good practice and became a legal duty in January 2023. Here is what the rules actually require, in plain English, and how to run a regime that survives an audit.

Where the duty comes from

Two pieces of legislation matter. The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 makes a named responsible person accountable for fire safety in almost every building that is not a single private home. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, introduced after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, added specific fire door duties for residential buildings.

What you must do, by building height

For residential buildings above 11 metres, roughly five storeys, the 2022 Regulations require you to:

• Check fire doors in communal areas at least every three months
• Use best endeavours to check flat entrance doors at least every 12 months
• Keep records of the checks and the steps taken where access was refused
• Give residents information about the importance of fire doors

Below 11 metres, the resident information duty still applies, and the fire risk assessment under the 2005 Order still expects doors to be maintained. Height reduces the prescribed frequency, not the responsibility.

What a compliant check looks like

Government guidance frames the routine check around the essentials: certification evidence, gaps, seals, hinges and the closer. Our article on the 5-point fire door check walks through each with tolerances. The critical habit is recording: a check that is not documented, with the door reference, date and outcome, might as well not have happened when an auditor asks.

What enforcement looks like

Fire and rescue authorities enforce the rules and can issue notices requiring remediation to a deadline; failure to comply can lead to prosecution. In practice, the more common cost is commercial: lenders, insurers and buyers increasingly ask for fire door records during transactions, and a missing paper trail stalls deals. The London Fire Brigade guidance is a good reference for what good management looks like.

A regime that works in practice

• Start with a full survey so every door has a reference and a known condition
• Fix what fails through planned remedial works, worst first
• Move onto a quarterly and annual inspection cycle with records per door
• Keep the evidence in one register, so the whole history of every door is one document