Brocade
TL;DR: Three regulators are now looking at multi-storey residential: fire and rescue authorities serving notices, the Building Safety Regulator refusing Building Assessment Certificates, and prohibition powers in the rare cases that warrant restricting use. Most enforcement is fix-it notices, not shutdowns or court action: around 87 percent of fire-brigade notices on UK residential blocks four floors and higher require remediation while the building stays in use, and around 9 percent restrict use. Four duties drive two-thirds of those notices: general fire precautions, escape routes, risk assessment, and maintenance.
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Three regulators looking at multi-storey residential
If you sit on the board of a Right to Manage company or a Resident Management Company, you have probably read the Building Safety Act language about criminal liability and felt your stomach drop. That language is real. The data on what regulators are actually doing is more useful, and calmer, than the language suggests.
There are three live pressure points on multi-storey residential in 2026. They do not all bite the same way, and they do not all bite at once.
The first is the Fire and Rescue Authority for your area. FRAs enforce the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (often called the Fire Safety Order or RR(FS)O), and serve enforcement notices on responsible persons who fall short. The notices appear on the NFCC Public Register of Enforcement Notices after a three-week appeal window. As of 25 April 2026 the register holds 9,565 notices nationally, of which 1,347 are on Purpose Built Flats with four or more floors.
The second is the Building Safety Regulator, which has the new powers introduced by the Building Safety Act 2022 over higher-risk buildings, defined as 18 metres or seven storeys and above. The BSR runs the Part 4 register of HRBs and assesses Building Assessment Certificate submissions. From a Freedom of Information response received from the BSR on 23 April 2026 (reference FOIBSR-088), the register holds 13,699 HRBs. Of these, 2,025 sit with Resident Management Companies and 607 with Right to Manage companies, so the resident-led cohort is roughly 2,632 buildings. The same FOI shows 658 BAC applications refused and 354 approved.
The third is the FRA again, this time using prohibition powers. A prohibition notice restricts use of part or all of a building. These are heavier than enforcement notices and rarer. Of the 1,347 NFCC notices on multi-storey flats, only 124 are prohibitions.
Three regulatory layers operate on UK multi-storey residential blocks today: Fire and Rescue Authority enforcement notices under the Fire Safety Order, Building Safety Regulator assessment of higher-risk buildings under the Building Safety Act 2022, and prohibition notices in the rare cases that warrant restricting use of a building.
The point of laying it out this way is that an RMC or RTM director needs a different mental model for each layer. Notices are common and remedial. BAC refusal is becoming common too, but it withholds permission rather than imposing a sanction. Prohibition is rare. Prosecution, as we will see in a moment, is rarer still.
Most fire-brigade enforcement is one of four basic duties
This is the most useful finding from the data, and it is where any RMC or RTM director should spend the bulk of their attention.
We extracted the article numbers cited on every NFCC notice for Purpose Built Flats four floors or higher. The same four articles of the Fire Safety Order appear on more than half of all 1,347 notices.
| Article | Cited on | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Article 8: General fire precautions | 906 notices | 67 percent |
| Article 14: Emergency routes and exits | 763 notices | 57 percent |
| Article 9: Risk assessment | 679 notices | 50 percent |
| Article 17: Maintenance of facilities, equipment and devices | 664 notices | 49 percent |
Each of these is a plain-English duty, not a specialist obligation.
Article 8 says the responsible person must take such general fire precautions as may reasonably be required to ensure that the premises are safe, and to limit fire spread within and from the building. In practice that means having and following a documented set of procedures: assembly points, fire warden duties, the action plan if the alarm sounds.
Article 14 says emergency routes and exits must be kept clear, sufficient in number, properly lit, lead as directly as possible to a place of safety, and exit doors must open in the direction of escape and not be locked or fastened in a way that prevents easy use. If the front communal corridor on your top floor has bicycles, recycling, or stored furniture in it, you have an Article 14 problem.
Article 9 says the responsible person must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of fire risks, review it regularly, and review it again when circumstances change. The risk assessment is the single document FRAs ask to see first.
Article 17 says fire-protection equipment and devices must be kept in efficient working order and good repair. Fire doors, smoke detection, emergency lighting, sprinklers if installed, and the dry riser. If you cannot put your hands on the maintenance log, you probably have an Article 17 problem.
Across 1,347 fire-safety enforcement notices on multi-storey residential blocks in the NFCC register, the four most-cited articles of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 are Article 8 (general fire precautions), Article 14 (emergency routes and exits), Article 9 (risk assessment), and Article 17 (maintenance). Each appears on roughly half or more of all notices.
If you are responsible for a building and you want to direct your time well, those four duties are where the evidence says enforcement attention sits. They are also exactly the same things the BSR will ask you to evidence in a Building Assessment Certificate submission.
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What the BSR refusal rate actually means
The 65 percent refusal rate from the BSR FOI is a striking number. It deserves a careful read rather than a panicked one.
Of the 13,699 HRBs registered, 11,717 (85.5 percent) have not yet been directed to apply for a Building Assessment Certificate. That leaves 1,982 in some stage of the application process. Of the 1,012 determinations completed so far, 354 were approved and 658 were refused.
The cohort that has been determined first is not a random sample of the register. It includes buildings the BSR has chosen to call up early, often because of risk profile, and it includes proactive applicants who pushed themselves forward. Both groups should be expected to over-perform compared to the long tail. They are not.
Read the Building Assessment Certificate guide →
What that means in practice: the BAC bar is harder than the sector assumed it would be. It does not mean two thirds of all 13,699 HRBs will fail. It does mean the 11,717 still waiting have time, and that time is the resource. The first cohort's refusals are the most expensive teaching the sector has ever had on what the BSR considers an inadequate safety case. If you are still in the waiting pool, the most useful thing you can do is study what got refused and prepare so your eventual submission addresses it.
For more on what a safety case has to demonstrate, see our building safety case explainer.
Prosecution is rare, but it is not zero
The Home Office and now MHCLG publish Fire prevention and protection statistics, which includes detailed prosecution counts. Across all of England between 2016/17 and 2024/25, the data shows:
- 36 prosecutions under Article 32 of the Fire Safety Order on Purpose Built Flats with four or more storeys, across nine years.
- Three prosecutions on Purpose Built Flats with six or more storeys, across nine years.
- Approximately 30 of England's roughly 44 fire and rescue authorities recorded zero such prosecutions across the entire nine-year period.
Across nine years of England-wide data, fire and rescue authorities have prosecuted three responsible persons under Article 32 of the Fire Safety Order in connection with purpose-built flats six storeys or higher. The mean for the wider four-floor cohort is approximately four prosecutions a year nationally.
Three is not a license to ignore the rules, and the volume reflects the structure of fire-brigade enforcement, not the seriousness with which courts treat the cases that do reach them. When prosecution does happen, it is usually because earlier notices were not complied with, or because there was a serious incident. Of the 1,347 NFCC notices on multi-storey flats, 122 are recorded as "not complied" with. Those are the cases most likely to escalate. The remaining nine in ten are either still in force, complied with, or have been withdrawn.
The framing for an RMC or RTM director is therefore not "if I get something wrong I will end up in court". It is "the regulator will tell me what they want me to fix, and the costly path is to ignore that letter".
Read the PAP responsibilities guide →
What this means if you are an RMC or RTM director
Here is what a board on a multi-storey block can usefully do this quarter, based on the evidence above.
First, get current on your fire risk assessment. Article 9 sits on half of all enforcement notices. If your assessment is more than twelve months old, or if you have had any building works, lease changes, or material changes to the way the building is used since the last review, the assessment is due an update. Most FRAs ask to see this document first when they engage with a building, and most BSR safety case submissions reference it.
Second, walk every emergency route in the building, including the ones you do not personally use. Article 14 sits on more than half of all notices. Look for stored items, missing or non-functioning lighting, doors that need fobs or keys to open from the inside, and signage that contradicts the actual layout. Photograph what you find, log it with a date, and assign someone to clear it. This is the single cheapest piece of FRA-readiness work a board can do.
Third, build or refresh the maintenance log for fire-protection equipment. Article 17 sits on roughly half of notices. Fire doors, alarms, emergency lighting, dry risers if you have them, and detection systems all have manufacturer or industry-standard inspection intervals. The log should record the date, who carried out the work, what was tested or replaced, and any defects found. A folder of unsorted invoices is not a maintenance log.
Fourth, document general fire precautions. Article 8 is the most commonly cited duty of all. This is the catch-all. You need a set of written procedures: what staff and contractors do if the alarm sounds, where the assembly point is, who the responsible person is and how to contact them, and what the simultaneous-evacuation or stay-put policy is for your building.
These four things are not specific to higher-risk buildings or to the BSR. They are RR(FS)O duties on every responsible person of multi-occupied premises. They are also exactly what gets cited when fire brigades enforce, and exactly what the BSR will look for in a safety case. Get them in order and you address the bulk of what every regulator is currently looking at.
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Sources
- Building Safety Regulator FOI response, reference FOIBSR-088, dated 23 April 2026.
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, Fire prevention and protection statistics, Table 1204, year ending March 2025, published 28 August 2025. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/fire-statistics-data-tables
- National Fire Chiefs Council, Public Register of Enforcement Notices, snapshot 25 April 2026. https://nfcc.org.uk/our-services/enforcement-register/
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/1541/contents
- Building Safety Act 2022. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2022/30/contents
This piece is for information only. For building-specific advice, consult a qualified fire safety professional.
Common questions
How many fire-safety enforcement notices have been served on multi-storey residential blocks?
There are 1,347 enforcement notices on Purpose Built Flats four floors or higher currently on the NFCC public register, as of 25 April 2026. Annual residential block notices accelerated from 45 in 2022 to 209 in 2023, 458 in 2024, and 449 in 2025. The register retains notices for three years unless still in force, so historical totals understate pre-2022 activity.
What does the BSR refusal rate of 65 percent actually mean?
Of the 1,012 Building Assessment Certificate determinations completed by the Building Safety Regulator, 658 were refused and 354 were approved. The cohort is self-selected: it consists of buildings the BSR called up early, often because of risk profile, and proactive applicants who pushed themselves forward. The 11,717 HRBs (85.5 percent of the register) still waiting to be directed to apply may experience different rates as the BSR works through the population.
How often are responsible persons prosecuted under the Fire Safety Order on residential blocks?
Rarely. Across all of England between 2016/17 and 2024/25, there were 36 Article 32 prosecutions on Purpose Built Flats four storeys or higher, and three on flats six storeys or higher. About 30 of England's roughly 44 fire and rescue authorities recorded zero such prosecutions across nine years. Most enforcement is delivered through fix-it notices, not court action.
Which fire-safety duties drive most enforcement notices on residential blocks?
Four articles of the Fire Safety Order appear on more than half of all NFCC notices on multi-storey flats: Article 8 (general fire precautions, 67 percent of notices), Article 14 (emergency routes and exits, 57 percent), Article 9 (risk assessment, 50 percent), and Article 17 (maintenance, 49 percent).
Are enforcement notices the same as prohibition notices?
No. Of 1,347 notices on Purpose Built Flats four floors or higher, around 87 percent are enforcement notices, which require the responsible person to take remedial action while the building stays in use. Around 9 percent (124) are prohibition notices, which restrict use of part or all of the premises because risk is severe and immediate. The remaining notices are alterations notices, requiring notification before specified changes.
What should an RMC or RTM director do if they have not been called up by the BSR yet?
Start with the four duties that drive most fire-brigade enforcement: review the fire risk assessment for currency, walk the escape routes and clear obstructions, log the maintenance of fire doors and detection systems, and write down the general fire precautions for the building. These are the same items a Building Assessment Certificate submission will need to evidence, so the work is not wasted whether or not your call-up arrives soon.
Further reading
On Brocade:
- Building Assessment Certificate Guide
- What Is a Building Safety Case?
- Building Safety Director Responsibilities for RTM Companies
- Fire Risk Assessment Tracking Guide
- How Many RTM Companies Exist in the UK?
External authoritative sources:
- NFCC, Using the Enforcement Register. Guidance on how the public register works, what statuses mean, and how appeals are reflected.
- Building Safety Regulator publications and guidance (gov.uk). The BSR's own published material on Part 4 registration, BAC assessment, and enforcement.