How much does a fire risk assessment cost? from £149

Almost every quote you receive is built from the same four inputs, whichever firm produces it. The first is floor area, because area determines how long the survey takes. The second is vertical complexity: a four-storey block with one stair takes far longer to assess than a single-storey unit of the same area, because every landing, riser and cross-corridor door has to be examined. The third is the type of assessment — a non-destructive common parts survey is a different job from one that includes sampled flat entrance doors or opening up. The fourth is volume: mobilisation, travel and administration are largely fixed per visit, so assessing five buildings under one instruction costs materially less per building than five separate jobs.

The table below reflects what we actually charge, not a market average. Anything materially cheaper than the low end usually means a desktop review, a template with the address changed, or an assessor whose competence you would struggle to evidence if it were ever challenged. Anything materially more expensive usually means a day rate, a national contractor's margin stacked on a subcontractor's fee, or an assessment scoped wider than the building needs.

A fire risk assessment is a legal document that names its author. When something goes wrong, the enforcing authority looks at two things: whether the assessment was suitable and sufficient, and whether the person who wrote it was competent to write it. A £79 assessment bought online is almost always a pro-forma completed quickly, with generic actions that do not tell you what to do, at a building the author may have spent forty minutes inside. It costs nothing until you need it to hold. Then it costs a re-assessment, an enforcement notice, an insurance argument, or worse. The honest test is simple: ask for a redacted sample report and the assessor's registration number before you compare prices.

A complete fee covers the survey, the written report in PAS 79 format, a prioritised action plan with realistic timescales, photographic evidence of the significant findings, and a conversation afterwards so you understand what to do first. It should also cover reasonable questions in the weeks that follow — an assessment you cannot ask questions about is half a product. What sits outside the fee is legitimate extra work: destructive opening up, drawings, sampled inspection of every flat entrance door rather than a sample, or return visits to verify completed actions.

If you manage more than one building, pricing per building is the wrong unit. A programme puts every property on one renewal calendar, one report format and one action tracker, which means the discount is only part of the saving — the larger saving is administrative. Managing agents and housing providers typically see per-property rates fall by around ten per cent at five properties and up to fifteen per cent at larger volumes, with scheduling agreed once for the year rather than negotiated building by building.

There is no statutory renewal interval, but the assessment must be kept up to date. In practice that means an annual review for most residential blocks and commercial premises, sooner where the building has changed, works have been carried out, occupancy has shifted or a fire has occurred. A review of an existing, still-valid assessment is cheaper than a first assessment, provided the original was competently done and the building is substantially unchanged. Where the previous report is weak, a review would simply inherit its faults, so we say so and quote a fresh assessment instead.

The calculator on this page uses the same bands our assessors quote from, so the figure it shows is the figure you will be charged for a straightforward property. Anything unusual — a building mid-remediation, a mixed-use site with several responsible persons, a portfolio spread across boroughs — is worth two minutes on the phone, and Awais will price it there and then rather than sending it away for review.