Ask that question of a self-managed block of flats and you often get a pause. The directors look at the managing agent. The managing agent looks at the freeholder. The freeholder looks at the lease. Meanwhile the duty sits there whether or not anyone has claimed it, and if something goes wrong, "we thought someone else was dealing with it" is not a defence.
This is worth getting straight, because the Building Safety Act created roles that did not exist a few years ago, and a lot of buildings have never formally worked out who holds them.
Accountable person and principal accountable person
For higher-risk buildings, those at least 18 metres or seven storeys with at least two residential units, the Building Safety Act introduced the accountable person. An accountable person is the entity that owns or is responsible for maintaining the common parts. A building can have more than one. Where it does, the one responsible for the structure and exterior is the principal accountable person, and they carry the heavier duties: registering the building, preparing and maintaining the safety case, applying for the building assessment certificate, running the resident engagement strategy, and reporting safety occurrences.
The accountable person is usually an organisation, not a named individual. In a self-managed block it is very often the resident management company or the right-to-manage company itself. That is the part directors do not always realise: if your RMC owns the freehold or holds the head lease and maintains the common parts, your company is likely the accountable person, and you as directors are the people who have to see the duty done.
Responsible person is the other hat
Under the older Fire Safety Order, which applies to the common parts of almost every block regardless of height, the duty holder is the responsible person. For a block of flats that is again usually whoever is responsible for the common parts, which is frequently the RMC or the freeholder. A building can have a responsible person under the Fire Safety Order and an accountable person under the Building Safety Act at the same time, and they are often the same body wearing two hats.
If that sounds like a lot of overlapping language, it is. The practical question underneath all of it is simpler: is there a named, competent point of responsibility for fire safety in this building, and does that person actually have the time, the knowledge and the information to do the job?
Why self-managed blocks feel this most
A large freeholder or a national managing agent usually has someone whose job this is. A self-managed block run by volunteer directors, often with day jobs, usually does not. The duty is identical. The capacity is not. That is not a criticism of resident directors, who take on more than most people realise. It is just the gap that the law does not care about.
The Building Safety Regulator has itself acknowledged this, saying it will allow extended timelines for volunteer-run resident management companies as it works through building assessments. That is a recognition that a volunteer board cannot be held to the same clock as a corporate landlord. It is not a removal of the duty.
What an outsourced function actually does here
This is where an independent fire safety adviser earns their place. Not by taking the duty, which cannot be delegated, but by taking the work. Someone has to hold the safety case together, keep the assessments current, chase the actions, manage the paperwork the regulator will ask for, and translate all of it for a board that did not sign up to become fire safety experts. That is a role, and most self-managed blocks do not have anyone in it.
OmniFire sits in that seat as an outsourced fire safety function. We commission and review the specialist work, but we sell none of it, so the advice a board gets is shaped by what the building needs and nothing else. For a resident-run block that is often the difference between a duty that is technically held and a duty that is actually being done.
If you are a director and you are not certain your company knows which roles it holds, that is the first thing worth settling. Our Compliance Baseline, from £300, is built to do exactly that. Email s.coogan@omnifire.co.uk and the first conversation is free.