Responsibility for Evacuation of disabled.

[nearlythere]

Disregarding the coordination and cooperation bit where does a landlord stand in relation to responsibility for evacuation of persons in a multi occupancy building? My thoughts are that each occupier has responsibility for the evacuation of persons who visit their demise and it is them who should carry out an assessment of disability issues and make suitable provision for evacuation.

Who would be responsible for disabled persons who are within a common area when an evacuation is necessary? It's not that they are in a demise.

Would there be a situation that employees would come under the responsibility of their employer or person with control and public in common areas may come under the responsibility of the landlord?

[wee brian]

If there's an employer of said person(s) then that's where the ultimate responsibility lies.

however, a multi occ business premises may well provide it as part of the service.

In a block of flats - there's nobody there......

[nearlythere]

however, a multi occ business premises may well provide it as part of the service.

The problem is when there is nothing in place. Who has to provide what for who and when? If I was a disabled person and went in to a multi occupancy building and on reaching the 5th floor the fire alarm went off and I can't get out as the lift is not for escape purposes, who is legally responsible for me? 

[Fishy]

Reasonably straightforward (in theory at least)...

Whichever responsible person (RP) manages the various areas in the building has the responsibility to make suitable arrangements for those areas that they manage and control.  They have a further duty to co-operate with any other RP who manages the locations that serve those locations (or are served by it).  So... one model (but by no means the only one) might be that the Landlord has responsibility within the common parts, but once the mobility impaired occupant is past the front door of the tenancy then the task passes to the tenant.  The two have to co-operate to co-ordinate their plans, so both have an obligation to work together to ensure that their management strategies integrate so that in all reasonably foreseeable circumstances there's a workable means of getting any disabled occupants to a place of safety (without placing them at unacceptable risk in case of fire).

There's no need to worry about who would carry the can if things went wrong and the various RPs ended up in court - because the reality is that the Fire Authority will just prosecute everybody & let the courts decide who's in the wrong!

[AnthonyB]

Increasingly multi-occupied premises have no staff on site at all or just (if you are lucky) a contract security guard whose job is Incident Co-ordination (& possibly investigation if it's a call challenging brigade where they won't automatically attend).

Whilst the landlord/agent can't totally wash their hands of the matter usually it ends up with the tenants having to take responsibility for common areas on their floors as they are unwilling to accept a service charge increase (if indeed such is possible as many are capped) to pay for someone to sit at the entrance every day just in case there is a fire.