Dear Director

You may have had had messages relating to Common Ground’s recent decision to charge a £75 + VAT fee to register tenants.

In preparation for this, we created an email list of all landlords across the Common Ground portfolio and sent out an email flyer so as to pre-warn landlords and explain the rationale. Click to view email flyer.

I wish to apologise as, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have pre-informed directors of resident management and RTM companies of our intentions.

Following feedback from a number of landlords, we have produced this communication to explain the rationale behind this decision.

In January 2024, I wrote a paper describing my frustration with Fire Safety Policy in the UK post-Grenfell. This can be viewed here.

All managing agents have struggled with making sense of an industry that, at best has been over-cautious or, at worst downright exploitative.

Fast-forward to January this year and I met a fire-safety officer who broke this mould. He got my attention by analysing a fire safety survey we had done for a client and his conclusion; We didn’t need to do around £20,000 worth of work that had been specified.

Importantly, Chris Bunyan, Fire Safety Enforcement Officer for Buckinghamshire Fire Brigade, is one of the highest authorities in this field.

His position supports a risk-based approach rather than a tick-box methodology, something I have advocated since publishing my paper in January 2024.

Chris has been retained as a consultant to Common Ground and we have successfully saved many of our clients thousands of pounds in unnecessary fire safety upgrades whilst still keeping buildings safe and compliant.

This article outlines our strategy
https://www.commongroundestates.co.uk/leasehold-library/a-holistic-approach-to-fire-safety-surveying/

However, on the flip side of this, we have been advised by parties such as Chris Bunyan and the Property Institute that to ensure compliance with the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 that we should register tenants.

From 6 April 2026, the Fire Safety (Residential Evacuation Plans) (England) Regulations 2025 impose statutory duties on Responsible Persons in specified residential buildings to:

• identify relevant residents who may have difficulty evacuating,
• offer and (if accepted) carry out a Person Centred Fire Risk Assessment (PCFRA),
• prepare an Emergency Evacuation Statement, and
• keep records and share required information with the Fire & Rescue Service, subject to consent.

Responsible Persons must be able to identify and engage directly with residents and keep accurate records of that engagement.

Tenant registration is the proportionate mechanism we have adopted to enable lawful communication, record keeping and compliance. The associated fee reflects the cost of administering this statutory compliance function

In order to make the process as easy as possible, we have created a webpage where landlords can very quickly enter tenants details. Most importantly, it directly asks the question as to whether PEEPS is required.

That webpage is here – https://www.commongroundestates.co.uk/tenant-registration/

We then register tenants and give them access to the portal. It also allows our compliance team to liaise directly with tenants when we come to do annual fire door checks.

We cannot lawfully do this via anonymous occupancy.

We must know who lives in the flat to:

• offer a PCFRA,
• record consent or refusal,
• maintain up to date fire safety information specific to each building

That makes tenant registration functionally necessary.

All leases contain clauses that allow for registration of tenants for a fee. Common Ground has never exercised this right previously as, whilst useful data to have, there was never a pressing need for it. With the changes due from 6th April, this has markedly changed.

The £75 + VAT has been set based on case law established in 2012. For those interested, the case is here – https://www.leaseholdknowledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/VanguardHouseLVT.pdf

“The Upper Tribunal considered £40 to be reasonable in 2012 for basic sub letting registration. Adjusted for inflation alone, that equates to approximately £60–£65 today. The current fee reflects not only inflation, but the materially increased administrative and compliance burden now placed on landlords and managing agents, including statutory fire safety and resident engagement obligations.”

We recognise the importance of data protection and have structured our tenant registration process to comply fully with the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.

Tenant registration is carried out on the basis of legal obligation under Article 6(1)(c) UK GDPR.

We process personal data where this is necessary to comply with fire safety legislation, including:

• identifying residents,
• providing statutory fire safety information,
• maintaining fire safety records, and
• demonstrating compliance to enforcing authorities.

We do not rely on consent as the lawful basis for tenant registration, as consent is not appropriate in a landlord/tenant or managing agent/resident context.

Common Ground is registered with the Data Commissioners Office – https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Entry/ZA100233