Your lease will state what costs your landlord can recover from you via the service charge.
The lease may say that the landlord can recover costs of complying with a statutory obligation, and a fire risk assessment is a statutory obligation, which means it is required by law.
Even if there is no specific mention of fire risk assessments or statutory obligations in the lease, there may be other clauses that justify passing on the cost to you.
One such example is a sweeping up clause, which covers expenditure that may not have been foreseen. An example of such wording would be ‘any other costs and expenses reasonably incurred in connection with the building’.
If you are asked to pay for a fire risk assessment, the cost is usually included in the annual service charge.
More information you might find useful:
- Who is responsible for carrying out a fire risk assessment?
- Fire risk assessments: how often must they be done?
- What are the leaseholder protections in the Building Safety Act 2022?
- Resolutions for service charge disputes: flowchart
- More Frequently Asked Questions on fire safety
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