If a premises isn’t occupied yet, we can only carry out a pre-occupancy fire safety assessment, not a full fire risk assessment.
If your building is already occupied, or about to be, you can get a free fire risk assessment quote from our team.
What is a pre-occupancy fire safety assessment?
It’s a fire risk assessment carried out on a premises before anyone moves in, most often where a building has been converted or changed use.
A common example is a domestic property being converted into supported living accommodation. The use has changed and potentially it has been refurbished, but the occupants and staff haven’t moved in yet, so before that happens, it makes sense to check the fire precautions are in place.
This isn’t the same as the technical verification some developers need after major new-build construction, checking that what’s been built matches approved plans in detail, including areas like lofts and cavities. That’s a different, more specialist exercise.
Why it can’t be a substitute for a full assessment
Article 9 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the Responsible Person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to relevant persons.
If there are no relevant persons on the premises at the time of the assessment, that assessment cannot be suitable and sufficient once the building is occupied.
A large part of a fire risk assessment is fire safety management: whether policies and procedures are in place, whether staff know what to do, whether drills happen. None of that exists yet in an unoccupied building.
And once people do move in, they bring their own hazards with them, alongside their own equipment, their own way of working, sometimes their own vulnerabilities, none of which can be accounted for until they’re actually there.
When you need one
We are often asked to carry out a fire risk assessment by clients who have been advised they need one in order to support a licence approval. This should be clarified with the governing body prior to booking, as detailed earlier, a fire risk assessment requires occupants to be in situ and if we complete a pre-occupancy assessment, it will need to be followed up by a fire risk assessment, once the premises is occupied.
Once occupants or employees do move in, the ongoing legal duty applies. Our guide answers who needs a fire risk assessment for occupied premises.
What it covers, and what it can’t
A pre-occupancy assessment can properly review the building’s physical fire precautions:
- Fire doors, including that they’re fitted correctly and carry the right signage
- The means of escape, including that routes are clear, signed and lead to a place of safety
- Fire detection and alarm systems, and whether they’ve been commissioned and tested
- Emergency lighting
- General compartmentation and fire safety provisions within the building itself
What it can’t cover is anything to do with how the building will actually be run. That’s the gap a full fire risk assessment closes once the building is occupied.
Pre-occupancy fire safety assessment FAQs
Is a pre-occupancy assessment a legal requirement?
Not in the same way a fire risk assessment is. Under Article 9 of the Fire Safety Order, the duty is to assess risk to relevant persons, and there are none to assess until the building is occupied. It’s still sensible practice to have the fabric checked before people move in. Our guide to fire risk assessment legal requirements covers the duty that applies once your building is in use.
Can the same company do the pre-occupancy check and my first fire risk assessment?
Yes, and there’s a genuine advantage to it. Whoever carries out your first fire risk assessment will want to understand what was checked before occupation, so using the same assessor for both means nothing gets lost between the two.
How long does a pre-occupancy assessment take?
It depends on the size and complexity of the building. A single converted 2 bed house takes considerably less time than a larger 6-8 bed supported living complex with multiple communal areas.
Who needs to arrange a pre-occupancy fire safety assessment?
Responsibility usually sits with whoever is bringing the building into use: the landlord, managing agent or operator taking on a converted or refurbished premises.
What happens next
Once your building is occupied, your pre-occupancy findings become the starting point for your first fire risk assessment, not a substitute for it.
Any outstanding actions from the pre-occupancy stage should be picked up early, and your assessor will want to know what was found and fixed before their visit.
Bringing a converted or refurbished premises into use? Get a free, fixed price quote and we’ll take it from there.