Luke Deal, Senior Associate at Trowers & Hamlins, analyses the recently introduced Residential Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (rPEEPs) and what it means for the responsible person of the building.
The Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 have recently introduced a new requirement for (rPEEPs) in residential buildings in England. The Regulations are designed to support the fire safety of “relevant residents” of specified residential buildings.
What buildings does this apply to?
The Regulations apply to all buildings that contain two or more sets of domestic premises that are at least 18 metres tall or have at least seven storeys, or are more than 11 metres tall with simultaneous evacuation strategies in place.
A simultaneous evacuation strategy is a policy that requires all residents to leave the building as soon as the alarm is sounded. Short-term rental buildings will fall within the scope of the Regulations if they meet the height or evacuation conditions.
Responsible person duties
The duty to implement rPEEPs lies with the responsible person (RP) for the building, who is typically the building owner or manager and is defined under Article 3 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (FSO).
The Regulations impose the following duties on the RP:
- Identify any “relevant residents” within their building; who are those with a cognitive or physical impairment or condition that compromises their ability to evacuate the building without assistance.
- Offer to conduct a person-centred fire risk assessment (PCFRA) for all relevant residents and ensure that a PCFRA is carried out for each relevant resident who requests one.
- After carrying out a PCFRA, implement all reasonable and proportionate mitigation measures. The cost of implementing any measure can be borne by the relevant resident where reasonable and proportionate for them to bear it. The cost of implementing measures can also be shared by the building’s residents if the measures will benefit the majority of them.
- Prepare a written emergency evacuation statement for relevant residents and provide them with copies. The RP must also maintain records of any PCFRAs and review them annually.
- Prepare a building-wide emergency evacuation plan, to be placed in the secure information box in the building.
- Share information with the local fire and rescue authority.
- Undertake an ongoing cycle of review.
Enforcement of the Regulations will be by fire and rescue authorities under the FSO. However, the Building Safety Regulator may also be engaged for higher-risk buildings.
Expected pitfalls
Voluntary engagement
Resident engagement with rPEEPs is entirely voluntary – a resident cannot be compelled to participate. Whilst an RP must give relevant residents every opportunity to come forward, it is ultimately the resident’s decision whether they wish to engage.
RPs must use “reasonable endeavours” to identify relevant residents in residential buildings affected by the Regulations, leaving it open for RPs to determine how they wish to engage with these residents.
RPs should create a resident engagement strategy using techniques such as opt-in registers, surveys and signposting. Examples of approaches to identifying relevant residents are available in the MHCLG Responsible Persons’ Toolkit.
It is important for RPs to understand the importance of keeping up-to-date records – ensuring robust records of efforts to engage with residents will be key to demonstrating that an RP has used reasonable endeavours to identify relevant residents.
Non-RP landlords
Situations may arise where an entity other than the RP has duties towards the relevant residents. An example is a social landlord that owns or manages units within a building, but the RP role is fulfilled by another party. In these situations, it is the responsibility of the RP to identify relevant residents and undertake PCFRAs. It is the RP for the building who is required to carry out the PCFRA, not the social landlord.
PCFRA requirement
An effective rPEEPs scheme should consider the building as a whole rather than making provision solely for individual units. It is therefore generally not appropriate for a party that is not the RP to undertake a PCFRA, as the party undertaking this must have knowledge of the building and related fire and safety measures, and the PCFRA must feed into the strategy for the wider building.
Resident consent
The entire scheme is voluntary, which means that, in addition to initial participation, RPs cannot compel relevant residents to engage at any later stage.
Once prepared, residents must agree with the emergency evacuation statements. Crucially, they must also provide explicit consent to share the prescribed information with the local fire and rescue authority, and failure to obtain such explicit consent would constitute a breach of data protection laws.
Regular reviews
The Regulations require regular reviews of the PCFRAs, mitigating measures and emergency evacuation plan at least every 12 months. RPs may also be required to carry out a review following a reasonable request made by a relevant resident, or if they have reason to believe that an amendment is required, for example being notified by a relevant resident of a change in situation.
Actions
With the new requirements almost in force, RPs now need to consider the following issues:
- Undertaking a gap analysis and audit – Identify whether your building is in scope and the current status of vulnerable residents and evacuation arrangements;
- Engage residents early – Communicate with tenants about the new rPEEPs regime and request voluntary participation and consent;
- Develop templates and process flow – Create standard PCFRA templates, evacuation statement forms, tracking and review schedules; and
- Train staff and test plans – Ensure your staff and managers are aware of the new duties, run drills or tabletop exercises, and integrate with broader fire safety systems.
