Fire Safety Solicitors

How our fire safety solicitors can help you

Weightmans’ Fire Safety Team also includes individuals with experience prosecuting for Fire and Rescue Authorities, and numerous individuals with experience advising Fire and Rescue Services in relation to operational firefighting incidents – giving them significant industry knowledge, and a tactical edge.

Weightmans’ Fire Safety Team are regularly invited to speak on fire safety and building safety at specialist industry events, including recently for NASHiCS, Fire Safety Matters Live, and West Midlands’ Building Safer Futures.

Services offered by our fire safety solicitors

• Advising on fire safety duties;
• Responding to investigations by Fire and Rescue Services;
• Appealing Fire Safety Enforcement / Prohibition Notices;
• Defending fire safety prosecutions by Fire and Rescue Authorities;
• Assisting with crisis management in the aftermath of a fire;
• Advising on fire safety requirements for commercial contracts and helping assess fire safety risks for corporate mergers / acquisitions;
• Defending claims made in the aftermath of fires and dealing with inquiries

Recent examples of work include:

• Acting for the Fire Risk Assessor in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry and associated investigation and litigation
• Representing one of the parties in the Samuel Garside Fire Investigation
• Represented an organisation in relation to the fire which destroyed over 120 homes in the Beechmere Retirement Village in Crewe, persuading the prosecution to drop the case three months before trial
• Successfully appealed a fire safety enforcement notice relating to multi-storey accommodation
• Persuading a Fire and Rescue Service to withdraw an enforcement notice relating to the refurbishment of a Higher Risk Building
• Due diligence on fire safety arrangements at one of the UK's leading care home groups prior to its corporate acquisition

Weightmans also provide a range of specialist Building Safety services, including:

• Advice on duties during construction and in occupation
• Advice on Higher Risk Buildings
• Advice to RBCAs and Building Control Authorities, construction and remediation disputes

Weightmans also provide services to civil claims, insurance claims and contractual disputes arising from fires and fire-safety issues. In addition, we are engaged by various organisations in the fire safety space to conduct risk audits to help identify and eliminate commercial risks and make the most of new opportunities arising out of an ever-shifting building/ fire safety regime.