What happens to directors if there’s a fire and they haven’t followed fire safety law?
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Failing to follow the Fire Safety Order is a criminal offence. A director, manager or secretary of a company can be personally guilty if the offence happened with their consent or connivance or because of their neglect. On conviction in the Crown Court the maximum is two years in prison, a fine, or both.
Who is responsible
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 puts the duties on the “responsible person”. For the common parts of a building, that is the person who controls them in connection with a trade, business or other undertaking, “for profit or not”, or otherwise the owner. In a flat-owned building that is usually the residents’ management, RTM or freehold company, so the company has the duty and its directors are the people who carry it out.
What the offences are
Article 32 of the Order makes it an offence for a responsible person to fail to comply with the main fire safety duties (including the duty to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, to put the necessary precautions in place and to maintain them), where the failure puts people at risk of death or serious injury in a fire. Separately, it is an offence to fail to comply with an enforcement notice from the fire and rescue service, and for that one no one needs to have been put at risk.
Personal liability of directors
Article 32(8) says that where a company commits an offence with the consent or connivance of, or because of any neglect on the part of, a director, manager, secretary or similar officer, that person is guilty as well as the company. Article 32(9) adds that where a company’s affairs are managed by its members, a member who takes part in managing it is treated as a director. So “we’re only volunteers” or “the company is responsible, not us” isn’t a defence in itself.
The penalties, in article 32(3), are a fine on summary conviction in the magistrates’ court, or on conviction in the Crown Court a fine, imprisonment for up to two years, or both.
What prosecutions have looked like
Most reported prosecutions involve commercial owners and managing agents, not unpaid residents. We haven’t found a reported prosecution of a volunteer director of a resident-run company. The law’s wording applies to them in the same way, though, and these two cases show what courts do with the same offences.
- Leicester, February 2023. The owner and managing agent of a seven-storey block of flats pleaded guilty to Fire Safety Order offences after Leicestershire Fire and Rescue Service issued several notices that weren’t resolved. The judge described over four years of no fire risk assessment, no competent person to help, no maintenance and failure to comply with enforcement, with 58 call-outs. The owner, Treasure HK Ltd, was fined £79,000 including costs. The managing agent, Affitto Estate Agents, and its director Manjeet Hayre were fined £101,000 including costs, including a two-year conditional discharge.
- Lancashire, September 2026. A landlord and his company pleaded guilty to multiple offences over two residential buildings where people lived: no suitable fire risk assessments, fire alarms switched off or without power, blocked escape routes, damaged fire doors and failure to comply with enforcement and prohibition notices. The landlord, who was also the company’s sole director, received 12 months’ imprisonment suspended for 12 months and a fine of £8,652. The company was fined £200,000. Together they were ordered to pay £37,293.70 in costs.
Notice the pattern. In both cases the fire service had inspected, given notices and waited, and prosecution followed only when the notices were not complied with. The sentence that included prison was suspended, but a custodial sentence is within the court’s powers.
What protects you
- Have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, in writing, with the name of whoever did it.
- Act on what it finds, and keep records of what was done and when.
- Keep the fire precautions maintained, such as alarms, emergency lighting and fire doors.
- If the fire and rescue service serves a notice, comply with it by the date given. You have 21 days to appeal one to the magistrates’ court.
This is general information, not legal advice. If you have received a notice, speak to a solicitor who deals with fire safety.
How Tiny Freeholder helps
Tiny Freeholder walks the directors through the fire risk assessment, whether you carry it out yourself or use a professional’s report, records who did it, keeps the actions list, shows when a review is recommended, and reminds you when something is due. That gives you the written record that matters if the fire service ever asks.