Most of the coverage since Grenfell has been about tall buildings. If your block is four storeys with no cladding, it is easy to assume none of it applies to you. That assumption is wrong, and it is the most common misunderstanding we encounter when taking over a building.
The threshold of 18 metres, or seven storeys, defines a higher-risk building. Those buildings carry the heaviest obligations: registration with the Building Safety Regulator, a safety case, an accountable person, the gateway regime for building work.
Below that line, those specific duties do not apply. What does apply is everything else — and "everything else" is still a substantial body of law.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to the common parts of every block of flats, whatever its height. Someone is the responsible person under it — usually the freeholder, the resident management company, or the RTM company. Not the managing agent, though the agent normally carries out the work on their behalf.
That responsible person must have a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, must act on what it finds, must record their findings, and must give residents information about the fire safety arrangements for the building. The duties were tightened by the Fire Safety Act 2021 and the Building Safety Act 2022, which between them made clear that the structure, external walls and flat entrance doors fall within scope.
None of that has a height threshold.
It is a common error to treat 18 metres as the only threshold. Buildings above 11 metres pick up additional requirements, and the most recent example is worth knowing about.
The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 took effect on 6 April 2026. They apply to residential buildings with two or more domestic premises that are either 18 metres or seven storeys and above, or over 11 metres where a simultaneous evacuation strategy is in place.
Where they apply, the responsible person must make reasonable efforts to identify residents who could not evacuate unaided, offer them a person-centred fire risk assessment, put proportionate mitigations in place, and try to agree a recorded emergency evacuation statement with each of them. There is a building-wide evacuation plan to prepare and share with the fire service, and the whole lot has to be reviewed at least annually.
A five or six storey block on simultaneous evacuation is squarely in scope. Plenty of boards running buildings of exactly that description have not realised it.
Four questions worth putting to whoever manages your building:
A block under 18 metres escapes the higher-risk regime. It does not escape fire safety law, it may well be caught by the evacuation planning rules, and the people carrying the duty are usually unpaid directors who did not volunteer for it.
If you are not sure where your building stands, send us the fire risk assessment and the evacuation strategy. We will tell you what we think applies, free, and say so plainly if we think you are already in good shape.
This is general guidance, not legal advice, and fire safety law changes often. Take advice on your specific building.
Send us your last service charge budget. We'll tell you honestly whether you're getting value — no obligation either way.