FRA FAQ
There is no fixed legal interval. The Fire Safety Order 2005 requires the assessment to be reviewed regularly and whenever it may no longer be valid. In UK housing, annual review with a fuller reassessment on a risk-based cycle is the common working pattern.
The legal position
A review is triggered whenever the current assessment may no longer reflect the building. Common triggers include material alterations, fire damage, a change in the evacuation strategy, new information about the external wall or flat entrance doors following the Fire Safety Act 2021, and a change in who lives in the building. Waiting for an anniversary date after any of these is the wrong reading of the law.
Since Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 came into force, every assessment must be recorded in writing in full, so each review should leave a dated record of what was checked and what changed. The responsible person carries this duty even where a consultant carries out the work.
Working cycles
A common pattern is an annual review of every assessment, a full Type 1 reassessment every one to three years depending on risk, and an immediate review after any trigger event such as a fire or a significant change to the building. The right cycle for a given block depends on height, construction, evacuation strategy and the reliability of previous findings, which is why a competent person should set it rather than a blanket policy.
If you want a starting point for a specific building, the free FRA review frequency calculator turns building type and risk factors into a suggested cycle you can defend to residents and regulators alike.
FAQ
No. The law requires regular review rather than a fixed annual cycle. Annual review is widespread because it is easy to evidence and hard to criticise, but the legal test is whether the assessment remains valid. See is it a legal requirement to have a fire risk assessment for the underlying duty.
Material alterations, a fire or near miss, changes to the evacuation strategy, new residents whose escape needs differ, and new information about walls or doors. A post-incident review covers the fire and near-miss scenario in detail.
It supports a risk-based cycle for housing rather than a single fixed interval. The BS 9792 standard page explains how the methodology handles review and reassessment.
FRA Flow tracks review cycles per building and keeps the evidence trail that shows why each interval was chosen.
