If you own or manage a block of flats, two separate duties now sit on your desk. One is about checking Fire Doors. The other is about telling residents how to look after them. They don't apply to the same buildings and mixing them up is one of the most common mistakes we see. Here's exactly what the Fire Safety Regulations 2022 Fire Doors provisions - regulation 10 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 - ask the Responsible Person to do, who it applies to and what happens when a check finds a problem. If you're planning Fire Door checks in flats for the first time or scheduling a flat entrance Fire Door inspection as part of the annual duty, this is the practical starting point.
The quarterly and annual check duties apply to multi-occupied residential buildings where the top storey is above 11 metres. That's typically a building of more than four storeys. The Fire Doors fact sheet confirms the Regulations came into force on 23 January 2023 and they apply in England only.
An estimated 87,000 residential buildings in England sit above that line, containing roughly 2.32 million dwellings, though government's own impact assessment flags data quality issues in these estimates. Either way, if your building is one of them, regulation 10 already applies to you.
Communal Fire Doors - the doors in shared corridors, stairwells and lobbies - must be checked at least every three months. That's a firm quarterly duty, including a check that each self-closing device still closes the door fully.
Flat entrance doors are different. You must use best endeavours to check these and their self-closers, at least every 12 months. "Best endeavours" is a deliberately lower bar than the quarterly duty - nobody can force their way into a resident's flat. It means you need a genuine, documented attempt to gain access, not a tick-box exercise.
If a resident doesn't respond or declines access, what matters is the genuine, documented attempt you can show - that's the evidence the "best endeavours" standard is built around and a one-off refusal properly recorded isn't held against you. Persistent refusal is a different matter: government guidance points towards further action rather than leaving it there. A flat entrance Fire Door inspection carried out this way still has to check the door itself, its frame and its self-closing device - the same elements a communal check covers, just on an annual rather than quarterly footing.
These two checking duties only apply once a building's top storey is above 11 metres. The duty to inform residents about Fire Doors is different and much wider. It applies to every building with two or more flats, whatever the height. Every Responsible Person has to pass this on to residents: keep Fire Doors shut, leave self-closers alone and report faults the moment you spot them. A two-storey block with four flats has this duty even though it will never trigger a quarterly check. Don't conflate the two scopes when you're working out what applies to your building.
Our piece on why an open Fire Door is dangerous covers the tampering problem in more depth, including the Fire Doors residents prop open "just for a minute."
The Fire Safety Act 2021 is often mentioned alongside flat entrance doors, but it didn't set any checking duty itself. What it did was amend Article 6 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. That amendment confirmed the Order's general fire precautions duties cover a building's structure, external walls and all doors between individual flats and the common parts. In short, it put flat entrance doors beyond doubt as part of the Fire Safety Order's scope. Section 1 commenced in England on 16 May 2022 - a different date from the Regulations below, so don't merge the two.
It was the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, not the 2021 Act itself, that then set out the specific checking frequencies - the quarterly and annual duties above.
Several articles describe the quarterly check as "simple," without saying what it should actually involve. Because Fire Door maintenance is our daily work, we check doors against a consistent list, not a general glance. The check doesn't re-test the door's fire rating (FD30 or FD60, typically) or its compartmentation role - that's what the original Fire Risk Assessment and the door's certification cover. It confirms the door is still in the condition that rating assumed:
Our guide to five quick checks you can make on your Fire Doors walks through the resident-facing version of this list.
Not every defect needs a new door. A self-closer that doesn't fully latch is often an adjustment, not a replacement. A door that's been planed down, had its core exposed or lost sections of its intumescent strip is a different matter - that needs repair or replacement by a competent contractor. The government's own Fire Door guidance is explicit that any repair must be carried out by someone competent to do it, as soon as reasonably practicable once a fault is found.
This is where the line between a "simple check" and a professional inspection or survey sits. If a defect goes beyond what a visual and operational check can resolve, it's time to call in a specialist rather than guess. We've written separately about what your Fire Door inspection involves if you're at that stage - this article is deliberately about the regulation 10 checking duty itself, not the fuller survey process.
Regulation 10 requires you to keep records of the steps taken to comply, including, for flat entrance doors, the steps taken when access was refused. A usable log should show, for each door: its location, the date checked, who checked it, a pass or fail against each element, any defect raised and the date it was closed out.
For the annual flat-door duty, where a resident can't be reached, your records should be able to show:
That paper trail is what a fire and rescue authority will want to see if it ever asks whether you met the duty, not just whether a door happened to be fine on the day.
We're a division of Blake Contractors Ltd and our Fire Door work carries BM TRADA Q-Mark certification - separately audited for installation (FDI) and maintenance (FDM), issued under BM TRADA's UKAS-accredited scheme. We've been family-run since 1979, which is why a block-wide survey gets treated the same way as a single door: big enough to cope, small enough to care about the one door that's easy to miss.
At The Maltings in Sawbridgeworth, that meant surveying over 250 communal and flat entrance doors across two blocks for Zone Property Management - logging and closing out every one, which is exactly the kind of record-keeping regulation 10 asks for. The result: "The Freeholder mentioned that your company is fantastic and he was really impressed with the service and knowledge of your team on site."
If you manage a block over 11 metres or you're simply not sure whether your building qualifies, the first step is usually just establishing the facts: the building's height, which doors are communal versus flat entrance and what records already exist, if any. We can work through that with you, then help put the quarterly and annual duties into a record-keeping system that holds up to scrutiny. Our Fire Door installation, maintenance and surveying service covers Southend, Essex, London and the South East. Get in touch to talk through what regulation 10 means for your specific building - there's no obligation beyond that conversation.
This article is an informational overview, not legal advice. Your Fire Risk Assessment and a competent Fire Safety professional should confirm your exact obligations.
The quarterly and annual check duties in regulation 10 of the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 apply to multi-occupied residential buildings where the top storey is above 11 metres - typically a building of more than four storeys. An estimated 87,000 residential buildings in England sit above that line, containing roughly 2.32 million dwellings, though government's own impact assessment flags data quality issues in these estimates. The Regulations came into force on 23 January 2023 and apply in England only. If your building sits below 11 metres, these specific checking duties don't apply - but the separate information duty still might.
Regulation 10 sets two distinct frequencies and they're not interchangeable. Communal Fire Doors - in shared corridors, stairwells and lobbies - must be checked at least every three months, including confirming each self-closing device still closes the door fully. Flat entrance doors are different: you must use best endeavours to check these and their self-closers, at least every 12 months. That's a deliberately lower bar than the quarterly duty, because nobody can force their way into a resident's flat. Mixing up which duty applies to which door type is, by our experience, one of the most common compliance mistakes.
"Best endeavours" means you need a genuine, documented attempt to gain access to a flat - not a tick-box exercise, but not an absolute guarantee either. If a resident doesn't respond or declines access once, a properly documented attempt is the evidence the "best endeavours" standard is built around - a single refusal isn't treated as non-compliance. What matters is the paper trail: the dates and method of each access attempt, how many attempts were made and over what period, any response from the resident including a refusal and confirmation the resident was given the information-duty notice about their door. Persistent refusal is a different matter and government guidance points towards further action rather than leaving it there.
No - this is the distinction the article is built around. The quarterly and annual checking duties only apply once a building's top storey is above 11 metres, but the duty to inform residents is much wider and applies to every building with two or more flats, whatever its height. Every Responsible Person must tell residents to keep Fire Doors shut, never tamper with self-closers and report faults immediately. A two-storey block with just four flats carries this information duty even though it will never trigger a quarterly check. Treating the two duties as one and the same is one of the most common mistakes freeholders and managing agents make.
Not necessarily. A self-closer that doesn't fully latch is often just an adjustment, not a replacement. But a door that's been planed down, had its core exposed or lost sections of its intumescent strip is a different matter - that needs repair or replacement by a competent contractor. Government Fire Door guidance is explicit that any repair must be carried out by someone competent to do it, as soon as reasonably practicable once a fault is found. If a defect goes beyond what a visual and operational check can resolve, the next step is a specialist inspection rather than a guess.
Regulation 10 requires records of the steps taken to comply, including, for flat entrance doors, the steps taken when access was refused. A usable log should show, for each door: its location, the date checked, who checked it, a pass or fail against each element, any defect raised and the date it was closed out. That paper trail is what a fire and rescue authority will want to see if it ever questions whether you met the duty - not just whether a door happened to be fine on the day it was looked at.
