If there is a shared front door, a shared stairwell or a shared landing, someone is legally responsible for it. In almost every case that someone is you.
The common misunderstanding is that fire safety in a let property is the tenant's problem. It is not. The Fire Safety Order makes the person who controls the common parts responsible for them, and since 1 October 2023 that assessment has to be recorded in full.
The second misunderstanding is that a converted house is a house. Once you split a three-storey terrace into flats, you have created a shared escape route with a single staircase serving sleeping accommodation. That is a materially different building from a fire safety point of view, and Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven and Haverfordwest are full of them.
Whether the stairs are protected, what opens onto them, and whether a fire in one flat would cut off everyone above it.
Flat entrance doors, doors to risk rooms, self-closers, gaps, intumescent strips and smoke seals. The commonest single finding we make.
Grade and category for the building you actually have, not a template. Where the common parts need their own system and where they do not.
Whether anyone could find their way down an unlit stairwell at three in the morning during a power cut.
Pushchairs, bikes, post, bin bags and meter cupboards in the escape route. Cheap to fix, expensive to ignore.
Interlinked smoke alarms on each storey, CO alarms where there is a fuel-burning appliance, and the electrical condition report. Different law, same visit.
If your property needs a licence, Pembrokeshire County Council will want to see the fire risk assessment as part of it. Getting the assessment done before you apply is far quicker than doing it after an officer has written to you with a list.
Landlords with several properties get them quoted as a batch and done in a run, which is meaningfully cheaper than booking them one at a time.
If you let a house in multiple occupation, or any building with common parts such as a shared hall, stairs or landing, then yes. The Fire Safety Order applies to those common parts and you are the responsible person for them. A single flat let to one household on its own is not covered, but the building around it usually is.
Broadly, a property occupied by three or more people forming more than one household who share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. Larger HMOs need a licence from Pembrokeshire County Council, and the licensing officer will ask for the fire risk assessment.
It depends on the layout, the number of storeys and whether the escape route is protected. A two-storey shared house is often Grade D LD2; a three-storey HMO usually moves up to LD1 or a mixed system. The assessment sets out what your building needs rather than quoting a standard at you.
Separate from the Fire Safety Order, the Renting Homes (Wales) Act fitness requirements have applied since 1 December 2022. Mains-wired interlinked smoke alarms on every storey, carbon monoxide alarms in any room with a gas, oil or solid fuel appliance, and an electrical condition report every five years. We check these as part of the visit because failing them makes the dwelling unfit, whatever the fire assessment says.
Short-term letting brings different duties again. Most Pembrokeshire landlords do both.
Where the duty sits when a landlord and a tenant both control part of a building.
Batch pricing for multiple properties, and what pushes a quote up.
Tell us the building and we will give you a price on the phone. Most assessments are booked within the week.