Surrey is a county of borough and district councils, and HMO licensing is run by each of them, not by the county. Across most of Surrey the licence duty starts at five people, which is mandatory HMO licensing only. The exception is Woking. Woking brought in borough-wide additional HMO licensing from 5 January 2026, running to 4 January 2031. There, a house let to three or four tenants from two or more households needs a licence, below the national threshold of five. The designation and the current fee sit on Woking Borough Council’s additional HMO licensing page.
In Guildford, Spelthorne, Reigate and Banstead and the other boroughs, a three or four person shared house is not licensable on its own. The licence duty starts at five people from two or more households sharing a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. No selective licensing was found in the boroughs checked. Check your own borough, because Woking is the outlier and the rule can change at the boundary.
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service will ask for the written assessment
Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, part of Surrey County Council, is the enforcing authority for business and rented premises across the county. Their own guidance says the Fire Safety Order applies to businesses and landlords and is enforced in Surrey by the service. They run free business safety visits, and they are clear that those visits are not designed to enforce the law and are not a substitute for the assessment. The assessment has to be suitable, sufficient and done by a competent person. They can inspect, serve notices and prosecute.
The person who appoints the assessor is still the responsible person. There is no licence to write one.
Care homes, station flats, and big old houses
Surrey’s stock leans a particular way. The county has an older population and a lot of premises where people sleep. There are several hundred care homes across Surrey, split between nursing homes and residential homes. Those are the assessments that carry the most weight, because the people inside cannot always get themselves out, and the report has to deal with staffing at night and a phased or full evacuation, not just alarms and extinguishers.
Around the stations the stock is purpose-built blocks of flats. Woking is one of the busiest commuter stops in the South East, and the flats built for that demand have communal stairs, corridors and entrance doors that fall under the Fire Safety Regulations. Older parts of the towns hold large Victorian and Edwardian houses, many split into flats. Say what the building is when you ask for quotes, because a care home, a block of flats and a converted house are three very different reports.
If you rent from a social landlord, start with them.
Housing licences and the Fire Safety Order are two duties
An HMO licence is a housing licence from your borough council. The fire risk assessment is a duty under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. You still need the written fire risk assessment. In Woking the licence starts at three sharers; elsewhere in Surrey it starts at five. The fire safety duty does not move with the licence. It stays if you run a business, let an HMO, or manage a building with common parts, in any borough.
What a Surrey report should actually name
A report that could have been written for any county is not suitable and sufficient here. For a care home it should name the night staffing, the evacuation plan and the residents who cannot move themselves, not “means of escape” as a heading with nothing under it. For a block of flats it should name the communal stairs, the entrance doors and the height. For a Woking HMO it should say whether the property needs a licence at three or four sharers. The building decides the report.
Checking an assessor in Surrey
There is no statutory register of fire risk assessors, in Surrey or anywhere else, so the checking falls to whoever signs the invoice. A care home or a block of flats is complex work, so ask for qualifications, professional body membership, indemnity cover and a sample report for a comparable building before you appoint. The full list of questions, and what a competent answer sounds like, is on what a fire risk assessment costs.
What it costs in Surrey
The building sets the price, not the postcode. A single flat above a shop in Guildford is a morning. A care home with residents who sleep on site, or a block over 11 metres with its fixed fire door checks, is a bigger job that takes longer before anybody writes a word. National ranges, and what moves a quote inside them, are on what a fire risk assessment costs. Ask for a fixed price against a written description of the property rather than an hourly rate.
Kent is another south-east county on this site: fire risk assessments in Kent.
Licensing across Surrey
My HMO has three sharers. Do I need a licence?
In Woking, yes, under the additional scheme from 5 January 2026. In the rest of Surrey, no, because the licence duty starts at five people. Check your borough.
Does an HMO licence replace the fire risk assessment?
No. Surrey Fire and Rescue Service will still ask for the written assessment, and a care home needs one whether or not a licence applies.
I run a care home. Is a free fire service visit enough?
No. The service says its business visits do not enforce the law and do not replace the assessment. A care home needs a suitable and sufficient assessment written by a competent person.
Getting a quote from an assessor covering Surrey
Describe the premises and we will pass it to assessors covering Surrey. Say the town, and whether it is a care home, a block of flats, a Woking HMO, or a converted house.
Not in Surrey? See all the areas we cover.