Your Fire Risk Assessment Found Problems. What Proves You Fixed Them?

Most fire safety prosecutions are not about failing to find a problem. They are about failing to prove you closed it. A fire risk assessment that lists ten significant findings and no evidence of what happened next is not a defence, it is a signed admission with dates on it. The record that protects you is the close-out trail: what was found, who was told, who did the work, on what date, and what was checked afterwards.

What has happened

On 20 April 2026, Markandayar Gowrikaran pleaded guilty at Brighton Magistrates' Court to offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, as the person having control of a house in multiple occupation at 20A St James Street, Brighton. The total came to £10,950.31, made up of a £2,768 fine, a £1,107 victim surcharge and £7,075.31 in prosecution costs (Brighton and Hove News).

The chronology is the part worth reading twice. East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service first inspected on 14 February 2023, and inspecting officers returned through to December 2023. Across those visits they recorded a fire alarm panel showing faults, missing smoke detector heads, a call point not securely fixed, a fire resisting door removed from the escape route, combustible storage in the common parts, a kitchen door that would not self close, and an unenclosed electrical intake (Fire Safety Matters, 17 August 2026).

The fire service's summary of what went wrong was not that defects existed. It was, in its own words, that "by failing to address all the identified deficiencies within a reasonable period, Mr Gowrikaran exposed occupants to an increased risk in the event of fire".

Ten months. That is the gap the record has to explain.

The document everybody keeps, and the one almost nobody keeps

Ask any landlord or employer for their fire safety paperwork and you will usually get the same thing: a fire risk assessment as a PDF, dated, with a competent person's name on it, and a table of significant findings at the back.

That document is genuinely necessary. Article 9 of the Order requires the responsible person to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks, and to record the significant findings and the measures taken or to be taken. If you have not got one, start there before anything else.

But read the wording again: the measures taken or to be taken. The assessment is a snapshot plus a promise. It records the state of the building on one day and a list of things somebody intends to do.

What almost nobody keeps is the second document: the evidence that the promise was kept. Not "we fixed it eventually", but a dated line for each finding showing what was done, by whom, and how it was verified.

Without it, your own assessment is the strongest exhibit against you. It proves you knew.

What a close-out record actually contains

This is not complicated, and it does not need software. A ruled page in a file works, as long as every line carries a date. For each significant finding in the assessment, the record should show:

• The finding, copied verbatim from the assessment, with its risk rating and its reference number
• The target date, taken from the assessment rather than invented afterwards
• What was actually done, in specifics. "Door adjusted" is weak. "Overhead closer replaced, door tested to close and latch from 30 degrees and from full open" is evidence
• Who did it, with the company name and, for specialist work, the engineer or the certification scheme reference
• The date it was completed, which is the field that decides the whole case
• How it was verified, and by whom. Somebody other than the person who did the work should have looked
• The supporting document, filed with it: the engineer's report, the certificate, the invoice, the photograph

Where the work is specialist, the supporting document usually exists somewhere else in your records already. An alarm fault clearance should appear in the fire alarm logbook. A door repair belongs in the fire door inspection record. Luminaire replacements sit in the emergency lighting logbook, and extinguisher work in the servicing record. The close-out sheet does not duplicate those. It points at them, so that one page answers the question an inspecting officer actually asks, which is "show me this specific item, closed".

Where interim measures fit

Some findings cannot be fixed in a fortnight. A compartmentation defect might need a survey, a specification, a quote and a shutdown.

That is a normal position and it is not the problem. What turns a slow fix into an offence is silence. If the permanent repair is twelve weeks away, the record needs to show the interim measure you put in during those twelve weeks, the date you put it in, and the date you reviewed whether it was still adequate. A documented interim measure is a defensible position. An undocumented delay is not.

How long is "a reasonable period"?

There is no number in the Order, and anyone who gives you one is guessing.

What determines it is your own document. If your assessment rated a finding as high risk and set a target of seven days, seven days is your standard and a fire officer will hold you to it, because you set it. If the rating is low and the target is at next review, that is defensible provided nothing has changed.

So the honest answer is: read your own assessment and see what you promised. The gap between your target dates and your completion dates is the most revealing thing in your fire file, and it takes about ten minutes to work out. Do that before somebody else does it for you.

Where digital genuinely helps

A paper close-out sheet is perfectly lawful and, kept properly, perfectly good evidence.

There is one thing it cannot do. Paper records when an entry was written, not when it was made. A digital record with a timestamp and a named user proves the sequence, which is exactly what is in dispute when the question is whether you acted within a reasonable period. That is the principle behind the golden thread requirements for higher risk buildings: attributable, timestamped, preserved rather than overwritten.

For most premises that is a reason to date and initial every line honestly as you go, not a reason to buy anything. But if your file has ever been written up in one sitting the week before an inspection, you already know why the distinction matters.

Frequently asked questions

Does the law require a separate close-out record?

Not in those words. Article 9 requires the significant findings and the measures taken or to be taken to be recorded. The close-out sheet is how you evidence the second half of that sentence, and in practice it is what an inspecting officer asks for.

How long should I keep it?

Keep it as long as you keep the assessment it relates to, and treat the two as one document. Historic records are the only way to show a pattern of acting promptly.

My contractor keeps the records. Is that enough?

The duty sits with the responsible person, not the contractor. Ask for copies as work completes rather than at renewal, and file them yourself.

What if I inherited a building with an old assessment full of open actions?

Date your review, close out what you can, and record the plan and interim measures for the rest. A dated plan beats an undated silence.