If you run a business, let property or manage a building in Birmingham, the law requires you to have a written fire risk assessment. Nobody is licensed to write one, so the job of picking someone competent falls to you.
This page covers who enforces fire safety law in Birmingham, the licensing rules that catch more landlords here than in most cities, and how to check an assessor before you appoint them.
Who enforces fire safety law in Birmingham
West Midlands Fire Service is the enforcing authority for most premises in the city. They have the power to inspect without notice, to serve enforcement and prohibition notices, and to prosecute. A prohibition notice can close a building the same day.
They will ask to see your fire risk assessment. If you cannot produce one, or the one you produce is obviously generic, that is where the conversation starts rather than ends.
The Birmingham licensing rule that catches landlords out
Birmingham runs an additional HMO licensing scheme, and it is wider than the national default.
- Smaller HMOs need a licence here. Since the scheme took effect, properties occupied by three or four people in two or more households sharing a kitchen or bathroom require a licence. Nationally the mandatory threshold is five.
- It covers the whole city, not selected wards.
- A licence costs 755 pounds per property, and you need one for each property you let.
- Fire safety sits inside the licensing conditions, so the assessment is not an optional extra you can leave until the council asks.
The practical effect: a three bedroom terrace in Selly Oak or Erdington let to three sharers is licensable in Birmingham when the same property elsewhere might not be. A lot of smaller landlords in the city are caught without realising it.
Check the current position with Birmingham City Council before you rely on any of this, including ours. Licensing schemes get renewed, extended and altered, and the council’s own page is the version that counts.
What makes Birmingham buildings different to assess
- A large student and shared housing stock. Selly Oak, Edgbaston and the areas around the universities carry a high concentration of HMOs, and sleeping accommodation is the hardest category to assess properly.
- City centre high rise residential. A decade of tower building means a lot of buildings where compartmentation, cladding and evacuation strategy are the whole assessment, not a section of it.
- A deep stock of converted Victorian and Edwardian property. Conversions are where fire stopping quietly fails, because the work was often done long before anyone was checking.
- Industrial and distribution premises across the Black Country fringe, where the assessment turns on process risk and storage rather than escape routes.
None of this changes the law. It changes who you should appoint, because an assessor who works entirely on small offices is the wrong choice for a converted HMO or a residential tower.
Checking an assessor in Birmingham
There is no register to check, so ask directly:
- What are your qualifications, and who awarded them? Not “years in the fire service”, which is a different discipline.
- Are you third party certificated? If yes, take the number and verify it with the scheme rather than trusting the logo.
- What is your professional indemnity cover? Ask for the figure.
- How many buildings like mine have you assessed in Birmingham? A licensable HMO and a city centre block are different jobs.
- Can I see a sample report? With the client details removed. A refusal is an answer.
What it costs in Birmingham
Price follows the size of the building, its complexity and whether anybody sleeps in it. A single storey office is not a comparable job to a licensable HMO or a residential block, and quotes should not look alike.
Get more than one quote and get them in writing. Make sure each states what is included: whether a return visit is covered, whether the action plan is part of the fee or extra, and whether anyone will talk you through the findings. A quote that answers those is worth more than one that is fifty pounds cheaper and vague. For the national picture on pricing, see what a fire risk assessment should cost.
Areas we cover around Birmingham
Assessors listed here work across the city and the wider West Midlands, including Edgbaston, Selly Oak, Erdington, Handsworth, Moseley, Kings Heath, Harborne, Sutton Coldfield, Solihull, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Dudley and Walsall.
Get quotes from Birmingham assessors
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Birmingham. We pass it on and nothing else happens to it.
Not in Birmingham? See all the areas we cover.