Most duty holders without a valid fire risk assessment are not deliberately non-compliant. They inherited a building or their assessment is eight years old or someone produced a two-page checklist in 2016 and it has sat in a drawer since.
The law does not distinguish. This sets out what actually happens, in the order it usually happens.
First, the perspective
Prosecution is not the usual outcome. In the year ending March 2025, fire and rescue services in England completed roughly 51,000 fire safety audits, issued around 3,000 formal notices and brought 35 prosecutions, according to Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government statistics.
Roughly one audit in seventeen led to formal action and roughly one formal action in eighty-four to conviction.
But note two things. Formal enforcement activity is running at its highest level in at least five years, up substantially on pre-pandemic figures. And the intermediate consequences, the notices, the closure, the insurance argument, the failed sale, are far more common than prosecution and are frequently more expensive.
The offences
Article 32 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 creates the offences. The ones that matter here:
- Article 32(1)(a): failing to comply with any requirement or prohibition in Articles 8 to 22B or Article 38, where that failure places one or more relevant persons at risk of death or serious injury in case of fire. Article 9, the duty to assess, sits inside that range
- Article 32(1)(b): the same, for regulations made under Article 24, which is how the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 are enforced
- Article 32(1)(d): failing to comply with an enforcement notice
- Article 32(2)(h): failing to comply with a prohibition notice
- Article 32(2)(b): making an entry in a register, book, notice or other document which you know to be false in a material particular
That last one deserves attention. Falsified logbook entries recording checks that were never carried out appear repeatedly in reported prosecutions and courts treat them very seriously indeed because they remove the possibility that anybody was simply careless.
Note the risk qualifier
The principal offences require that the failure placed one or more relevant persons at risk of death or serious injury. Absence of an assessment is not automatically an offence in isolation, it becomes one where that absence exposed people to serious risk. In practice, in an occupied building with any material deficiency, that threshold is not difficult for a prosecutor to establish because the assessment is the mechanism by which deficiencies would have been found.
The penalties
For offences under Article 32(1)(a) to (d) and 32(2)(h):
- On summary conviction, a fine
- On conviction on indictment, a fine or imprisonment for up to two years or both
Since section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into force in March 2015, the £5,000 cap on magistrates' fines was removed. Summary conviction under the Fire Safety Order now carries an unlimited fine.
The 1 October 2023 amendments also removed the fine caps from several lesser offences, including failure to comply with a requirement imposed by an inspector under Article 27. Offences that previously attracted a level 3 fine of around £1,000 are now unlimited.
Sentencing approach. Individuals are fined according to means. Companies are fined broadly in proportion to turnover and profit. Courts dealing with fire safety offences frequently have regard, by analogy, to the sentencing guideline for health and safety offences, which calculates fines from culpability, seriousness of harm risked, likelihood of harm and organisational turnover. The practical effect is that a large organisation can attract a substantial fine even where nobody was hurt.
Personal liability for directors and officers
This is the part that changes the conversation in boardrooms and it is regularly overlooked.
Article 32(8): where an offence under the Order committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of or to be attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer or any person purporting to act in such a capacity, that person as well as the body corporate is guilty of the offence and is liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.
Article 32(9) extends this to members of a body corporate managed by its members.
Article 32(10) goes further still: where the commission of an offence by one person is due to the act or default of some other person, that other person is also guilty and may be charged and convicted whether or not proceedings are brought against the first person.
Note the word neglect in Article 32(8). Consent and connivance require knowledge. Neglect does not. A director who never asked whether the fire risk assessment existed can be caught by it.
Reported cases bear this out. West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service prosecuted a company director who allowed residents to move into a converted seven-storey block before the escape routes had been signed off as fire safety compliant, he was sentenced in March 2025 at Lewes Crown Court to six months' imprisonment suspended for twelve months, 150 hours of unpaid work and a £1,000 fine. Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service prosecuted a company and its director over blocked exit routes, bolted final exits and stock piled to ceiling height at a Tamworth industrial unit, the company was fined £30,000 with around £25,000 costs and the director fined personally.
And there is no easy escape from it
Article 32(11): nothing in the Order gives an employer a defence in criminal proceedings by reason of the act or default of an employee or of a person they nominated under Articles 13(3)(b) or 15(1)(b) or appointed under Article 18(1).
Read that carefully. You cannot defend a prosecution by saying you appointed a consultant. Appointing competently is relevant to the due diligence defence but the appointment itself does not transfer liability.
Article 34 reverses the burden of proof. In proceedings for an offence consisting of a failure to comply with a duty "so far as is practicable" or "so far as is reasonably practicable", it is for the accused to prove that it was not practicable to do more than was in fact done.
That is the single most important reason to hold a properly documented assessment. Without it, you are required to prove a negative with no evidence.
Article 33 does provide a defence: except for failures under Article 8(1)(a) or Article 12, it is a defence for the person charged to prove they took all reasonable precautions and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence. The raw material of that defence is documentation: a competent assessment, a recorded appointment decision, an action plan with dates and evidence the plan was executed.
What happens before prosecution
Enforcement escalates. In order:
- Audit or inspection, triggered by the risk-based programme, a complaint, a fire, a referral from another authority or a themed campaign
- Notification of deficiencies, a non-statutory letter setting out what is wrong
- Alterations notice under Article 29, where the premises constitute a serious risk or may do if changed
- Enforcement notice under Article 30, specifying the provisions breached and requiring remedy within not less than 28 days
- Prohibition notice under Article 31, where use involves a risk so serious that use should be prohibited or restricted. It takes effect immediately where the risk is imminent and appealing does not suspend it
- Prosecution
Each stage is appealable to the magistrates' court within 21 days. See our separate guide on responding to a notice.
The consequences that arrive first
Prosecution is the headline. These are what actually damage most businesses.
Prohibition notice
Closure or restriction of all or part of the premises, immediately. For a hotel it empties the rooms. For a restaurant it stops trading. For a factory it stops production. For a residential building it may require residents to be decanted, at the landlord's cost.
Commercially, this is usually worse than the fine that might follow.
Insurance
Policies commonly contain conditions requiring compliance with statutory obligations and maintenance of adequate fire precautions. Insurers increasingly ask whether the assessment was carried out by a competent, third-party certificated provider.
Be careful with the widely repeated claim that having no assessment automatically voids your cover. It is not accurate as a general statement. What is accurate is that it hands an insurer a line of argument at exactly the point you cannot afford one and that arguments about breach of condition are expensive and slow even when you eventually win. Renewal terms and premiums also move.
Civil liability
Article 39 provides for civil liability for breach of statutory duty by an employer in respect of employees. Beyond that, injured occupants, employees and visitors bring ordinary negligence claims and a missing or inadequate assessment is close to determinative on breach of duty.
Property transactions
Buyers' solicitors, lenders and institutional investors ask for the fire risk assessment, the action plan, evidence of completion, fire door records and, for residential blocks, external wall information. An absent or stale assessment delays transactions, triggers retentions and reduces price.
Licensing
Premises licences, HMO licences, care registration and childcare registration all engage fire safety. Housing authorities can additionally impose financial penalties of up to £30,000 as an alternative to prosecution for certain housing offences and can pursue rent repayment orders against unlicensed HMO landlords.
Corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter
Where a fire causes death and the way an organisation's activities were managed or organised by senior management amounted to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is engaged, carrying an unlimited fine, publicity orders and remedial orders. Individuals can face gross negligence manslaughter charges.
Reputation
Fire and rescue services publish prosecution outcomes deliberately, as a deterrent. Those pages rank and they persist.
What "no valid assessment" actually looks like
Enforcing officers do not only encounter buildings with nothing at all. More common:
- An assessment predating a material change to the building, its use or its occupancy
- An assessment carried out before 1 October 2023 with no record of all findings
- A generic template with no scope statement, no named assessor and no risk methodology
- An assessment that excludes the areas where the risk is, for example a common parts assessment for a building where the problem is in the flats
- A valid assessment with an action plan nobody actioned. This is the most common of all and in some ways the worst because you have documented that you knew
That last one removes any argument that you were unaware. Article 32(8) turns on neglect and a live uncompleted action plan is neglect in written form.
What to do if you are not sure you are covered
- Find the current assessment. If you cannot find it, that is your answer
- Check the date and whether anything material has changed since
- Check it names a competent assessor and states which standard was applied
- Check it has a scope statement, a risk rating with a visible methodology, an action plan and a review date
- Check the action plan status. Outstanding items are the first thing an inspecting officer asks about
- Check your Article 11(2) fire safety arrangements are recorded
- Check your records: alarm tests, emergency lighting, extinguisher servicing, fire door checks, training, drills
- If any of that is missing, commission a new assessment now rather than after the inspection
Frequently asked questions
What is the maximum fine for not having a fire risk assessment? There is no maximum. Since March 2015, fines on summary conviction under the Fire Safety Order have been unlimited and on indictment the court can impose a fine, up to two years' imprisonment or both.
Can I go to prison for a fire safety breach? Yes. Custodial sentences, frequently suspended but sometimes immediate, are imposed for serious breaches under the Order.
Can a director be personally prosecuted? Yes. Article 32(8) makes a director, manager, secretary or similar officer personally guilty where the offence was committed with their consent or connivance or is attributable to their neglect.
Does having a consultant protect me? Not from liability. Article 32(11) removes any defence based on the default of a person appointed under Article 18(1). A competent appointment supports the Article 33 due diligence defence but the duty remains yours.
Will my insurance be invalid without a fire risk assessment? Not automatically and be sceptical of anyone who says otherwise. It depends on the policy wording and the facts. It does give an insurer grounds to argue and it affects renewal terms.
What if I have an assessment but have not done the actions? That is a worse position than many people realise. You have documented knowledge of a deficiency and no evidence of having addressed it, which is directly relevant to the neglect test in Article 32(8).
