Many businesses share a building or site with others: units on a business park, offices on different floors, retail units in a block, or workshops on an industrial estate. Shared stairs, corridors, plant rooms, water tanks and alarm panels raise a simple question that is easy to get wrong: who is responsible for what? This guide explains how responsibility is usually divided, and what a fire risk assessment, a Legionella risk assessment and Legionella sampling should cover in a shared building.
Who is responsible?
Fire. Under the Fire Services Acts 1981 and 2003 (section 18(2)), the person in control of a premises must take reasonable measures to guard against outbreak of fire and to ensure the safety of people. In a multi-tenant building, control is often shared. The landlord or management company usually controls the common areas and shared systems, such as escape stairs, corridors, the fire alarm panel and emergency lighting. Each tenant usually controls the unit it occupies. Your lease and service charge documents show how it is split in practice, and where there is any doubt it is worth agreeing it in writing.
Water. Employers have duties under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 to manage risks to people at work, and Legionella is one of them. Irish guidance is set out in the HPSC National Guidelines for the Control of Legionellosis in Ireland and the HSA information on Legionnaires’ disease. In a shared building the landlord or management company often looks after shared water tanks, risers and plant rooms, while each tenant looks after the taps, kitchens and showers in its own unit. Both sides need to know where the line is.
Common gaps in shared buildings
- Each party assumes the other has an assessment. The landlord thinks tenants cover their own units, and tenants assume the building is covered. Nobody checks.
- Fit-outs change the building. New partitions, cabling and pipe penetrations can affect escape routes and fire separation if they are not done and checked properly.
- Common routes get used for storage. Boxes, pallets and bins in shared corridors and stairs can block escape routes, and fire doors get wedged open.
- Vacant units. Taps and showers in an empty or rarely used unit let water stagnate. See our guide to flushing little-used taps and showers.
- Shared plant and tanks. Plant rooms and water storage are easily forgotten. See plant rooms and boiler rooms: keeping fire risk under control.
- Quiet offices. Fewer people on site can mean less water use. Read about hybrid working and quiet offices.
- Records in different places. Alarm test logs, flushing records and sampling results end up with different people, so nobody can show the full picture.
What a fire risk assessment should cover in a shared building
A fire risk assessment looks at how a fire could start, who is at risk, the escape routes, alarms, emergency lighting, fire doors and firefighting equipment. In a shared building it should also cover the common areas, the way units connect to them, a joint evacuation plan and assembly point, and who tests the alarm and emergency lighting and how those results are shared. Each tenant should then assess its own unit and make sure it fits with the building arrangements. See fire risk assessment or fire safety audit, fire alarm testing and records and fire assembly points. Our fire risk assessment service covers standard commercial buildings across Ireland.
What Legionella assessment and sampling should cover
A Legionella risk assessment reviews the whole water system and identifies where bacteria could grow. In a shared building that means the shared parts as well as the water in each unit, and everyone should know what is covered. Sampling then checks whether the controls are working, from representative outlets chosen with the risk assessment. See our Legionella risk assessment service, Legionella testing and sampling and which outlets get sampled. Share results and actions between landlord and tenants so nothing falls through the gap, and see our guide to the written scheme of control.
A simple way to organise it
- Ask for copies of the building’s current fire risk assessment and Legionella risk assessment.
- Write down who is responsible for what: common areas and shared systems, and each unit.
- Agree who arranges the shared assessments, sampling and alarm testing, and how results are shared.
- Check that vacant units are flushed and that escape routes are clear.
- Review the assessments when a unit changes use, a fit-out is done or a tenant moves in or out.
- Keep the records together so anyone can show them if asked. See fire and water safety checks when leasing or buying premises.
Where we work
Safer Solutions carries out fire risk assessments, Legionella risk assessments and Legionella sampling for businesses, landlords and managing agents across Ireland. That includes business areas such as Tallaght, Blanchardstown, Sandyford, Citywest, Dundrum and Dún Laoghaire around Dublin, Ballincollig and Little Island near Cork, Castletroy and Raheen near Limerick, and Oranmore and Mervue near Galway. See all the areas we cover or go straight to Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway. Tell us about your building through our contact page or call 086 275 9728 for a free written quote.
This guide is general information and is not legal advice. Your duties depend on your lease, the use and layout of the premises and who has control of each part.