Most London fire door work is not a single building with one owner walking an inspector round. It is a managed block with flat entrance doors that belong behind somebody else's front door, a freeholder, an agent and a contractor who each hold a different part of the problem. The inspection itself is the cheap part. Getting into the doors, and proving afterwards which ones were seen, is where a London programme stands or falls.
The flat entrance door is the one you cannot walk up to
Common part doors are reached on the day. Flat entrance doors are not: somebody has to be in, and in a block of ordinary London tenancies a large minority will not be, twice. A programme that does not plan for that returns a first pass covering the risers and the stair doors and a no access list of flats, which is the half that carries the compartmentation between a fire and everybody else's escape route. Agree at the outset how many revisit rounds are included, what notice goes out, and at what point the freeholder uses the access route the lease actually gives it.
Converted stock hides its own history
A Victorian or Edwardian house split into flats in the 1980s often has doors that are neither original nor certificated: a solid door of the right weight with no evidence behind it, or a later replacement fitted by a leaseholder with no fire rating at all. The inspector cannot certify a door from its appearance. Expect a London conversion to return a list of doors whose status is unknown rather than failed, and expect the remedial decision on those to be a commercial one about upgrade against replacement.
Who you are actually answering to
For most premises in Greater London the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order is London Fire Brigade, and it is the brigade that inspects and serves notices. Higher risk residential buildings also sit inside the occupation regime overseen by the Building Safety Regulator, which asks for the same evidence from a different direction. Both want the same thing from a fire door programme: a record naming doors, not a percentage.
What the report has to leave behind
A door schedule with every door located and numbered, the result against each element, what was found rather than what was quoted, and the no access list with dates of each attempt. A London block changes agent every few years and the schedule is what survives the handover. A report that says the building is a percentage compliant, with no schedule under it, is worth nothing to the next person who has to answer for the building.
Questions people ask about fire door inspection London
How often do fire doors in a London block have to be checked?
In a building containing two or more sets of domestic premises above 11 metres in height the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 set the check regime for common part doors and flat entrance doors. Below that, the interval comes from the building's own fire risk assessment, and article 17 still requires the doors to be kept in efficient working order.
What happens if leaseholders will not give access?
The inspection records the attempts and the doors stay on the no access list. The lease normally gives the freeholder a right of entry on notice for inspection, so the route exists; it is slow, so it belongs in the programme from the start rather than after the first pass has failed.
Who enforces fire door duties in London?
London Fire Brigade is the enforcing authority for the Fire Safety Order across most premises in Greater London. For higher risk residential buildings in occupation the Building Safety Regulator has its own oversight, and the evidence both ask for is the same.
Can a door with no certification label be kept?
Sometimes, but it becomes an evidence question rather than an inspection one. An unlabelled door is recorded as unknown, and the decision to upgrade it, obtain evidence for it or replace it is one the building has to take and record.