Who owns the door responsibility?
Commercial lease wording varies, but the typical pattern divides door responsibility along structural lines. The landlord typically retains responsibility for: the building structure including external frames and external glazing, all common-area doors (lobbies, corridors, plant rooms), and fire compartmentation between tenant demises. The tenant typically retains responsibility for: internal doors within their demise, internal door hardware, and sometimes the demise entry door itself depending on lease wording.
A read of the specific lease before commissioning any major work is essential. The default trade assumption matches the typical pattern but specific leases can vary substantially.
Fire Safety Order responsibilities in multi-let buildings
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 places duties on the “Responsible Person” — usually the person with control of the premises. In a multi-let commercial building, there are typically multiple Responsible Persons: the landlord for common areas, fire stairs, riser cupboards, plant rooms; each tenant for their demise.
For doors specifically: fire doors in the common areas (lobbies, corridor doors, fire stair doors) are landlord responsibility. Fire doors within tenant demises are tenant responsibility. Doors on the boundary (demise entrance door fire-rated to give compartmentation) are usually landlord but lease wording can shift this.
Where the building has a fire risk assessment (which it must, under FSO), the assessment should document the door allocation. If it does not, it should be updated.
Schedule of condition: protect both parties
At lease commencement, a documented schedule of condition recording each door’s condition (with photographs) protects both parties from later disputes. At lease end, dilapidations claims become a comparison exercise: where the door has deteriorated beyond fair wear and tear, the tenant pays; where the door was already in that condition, the tenant does not.
Without the schedule, the dispute is harder to resolve and usually favours whichever party has the better records — often the landlord, by default.
A specialist commercial door surveyor can produce the schedule for £50–£200 per door. The investment is small relative to the dilapidations spend it protects.
Dilapidations at lease end
When a commercial tenant exits, the landlord typically serves a dilapidations schedule identifying any items requiring repair or replacement to restore the demise to lease-compliant condition. Doors feature heavily in commercial dilapidations claims.
Common dilapidations items on doors: closer fault not repaired, hardware damaged or missing, door blade scratched or scuffed, frame damaged, signage missing or wrong, fire door modifications that have invalidated certification.
For the landlord: a complete, costed schedule served promptly with engineer reports is the strongest position. For the tenant: contesting items that were already in that condition at lease commencement (with photographs from the schedule of condition) is the strongest defence.
Most dilapidations are negotiated rather than litigated — but the negotiation works better with evidence on both sides.
Centralised maintenance contracts across a building
For multi-let commercial buildings, a single maintenance contract covering both landlord (common-area) and tenant (demise) doors is usually cheaper and more compliance-consistent than separate arrangements. The structuring is:
- Landlord holds the master contract with the door contractor.
- Common-area doors are serviced under the contract at landlord cost.
- Tenant demise doors are serviced under the same contract on the same visit; cost is recharged to tenants (per door, or as part of service charge).
- Single contractor across the building means consistent quality, one engineer relationship, and aligned scheduling that doesn’t disrupt multiple tenants separately.
- Documentation is held centrally — useful for landlord regulator-facing duties.
Selecting a contractor for property management
For commercial property management specifically, useful contractor criteria:
Multi-site delivery experience — managing a portfolio of doors across multiple sites, rather than ad-hoc single-door work.
Cost reporting in the format the property manager needs — itemised invoices, charge codes, monthly summary reports for budget tracking.
Tenant-facing professionalism — engineers attending tenant demises need to be presentable, identifiable, and able to coordinate access without escalation.
FSO documentation discipline — written reports per door, retained centrally, supporting landlord regulator duties.
Coordinated programme planning — work scheduled across the building to minimise disruption, not visit-by-visit improvisation.
Common landlord-tenant disputes and how to defuse them
A handful of disputes recur in commercial property door work. Who pays for a closer replacement on the demise entry door? Lease language usually answers — but if not, the trade default is tenant if the closer is within the demise hardware, landlord if it is structural to the door frame. Who pays for fire door compliance work on the boundary door? Almost always landlord — fire compartmentation is structural. Who pays for vandalism damage? Building insurance answers this, sometimes tenant contents insurance for hardware specifically. Who arranges the maintenance contractor? Landlord centrally is usually cleaner; tenant arranging within their demise is acceptable but creates fragmentation.
Most of these are answered by the lease if read carefully. Where the lease is ambiguous, written agreement between landlord and tenant before work commissioned saves later argument.