How to choose a competent fire risk assessor from £149

Article 18 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires the responsible person to appoint one or more competent persons to assist with fire safety measures, and a person is competent where they have sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities. The duty to choose competently sits with you, not with the assessor. That is the uncomfortable part: if you instruct someone unqualified and the assessment turns out to be inadequate, the enforcement conversation is with you. Which is why the checks below are worth the ten minutes they take.

Recognised registers exist precisely so buyers can verify competence without being fire engineers themselves. The National Register of Fire Risk Assessors and the professional bodies behind it assess individuals against defined criteria and re-check them. The trap is company-level marketing: a firm may advertise a register logo because one director is listed, while the person who attends your building is not. Ask for the registration number of the individual who will carry out the survey, and check it. Ours is NFRAR ID 1576, and it belongs to the person who will be standing in your building.

This single request separates serious assessors from the rest, and almost nobody makes it. A good report identifies hazards specifically rather than generically, bands actions by priority with realistic timescales, references the duty each action satisfies, includes photographs of the significant findings, and states the limitations of the survey. A weak report reads the same for every building: generic phrases, no photographs, actions like review fire safety arrangements that tell you nothing about what to do on Monday morning. If a firm will not show you a redacted sample, that is your answer.

A great deal of fire risk assessment work in London is sold by one company and delivered by another. There is nothing inherently wrong with subcontracting, but you should know it is happening, because it changes three things: whose competence you are relying on, who you speak to when you have a question about the report six months later, and whether the person who priced the job understood the building. Ask directly. If the answer is vague, ask for it in writing.

When the same firm writes the assessment and quotes for the remedial work it identifies, the incentive runs the wrong way. Most such firms are honest, but you cannot see which ones are not, and you have no way of knowing whether a finding was raised because it mattered or because it billed. The clean arrangement is separation: the assessor identifies, and you appoint whoever you like to fix. We work that way deliberately. If you want us to help with remedial work we will quote it separately and only if asked, and the assessment reads exactly the same either way.

Professional indemnity insurance is not a competence test, but it is a useful proxy: insurers ask questions before they underwrite fire risk assessment work, and cover levels tell you something about the scale of work the firm expects to defend. Ask for the certificate, check it is current, and check the cover extends to the type of building you own. Also confirm public liability cover if the assessor will be working around residents or the public.

You can assess most of this in one call. Who will carry out the survey, and what is their registration number? How long will they be on site for a building like mine? What is the report turnaround, and is it PAS 79 format? Can I see a redacted sample? Do you also sell remedial work? What happens if I have questions three months later? A competent assessor answers all six without hesitation, because they are the answers they are proud of. Anyone who deflects on more than one is telling you something.

Awais Sarwar carries out every assessment personally. He is IFSM registered, listed on the National Register of Fire Risk Assessors under ID 1576, and works across London and the South East for managing agents, freeholders, housing providers, hospitality groups and household-name brands. The price is fixed before the visit, the PAS 79 report lands within 24 hours, and the call afterwards is included — because a report you do not understand is not much use to anybody.