Two sets of fire systems in every tower
It helps to picture an office building's fire protection as two layers. The base-building systems serve the whole building: the fire indicator panel, sprinklers, hydrants, stair pressurisation, the occupant warning system, fire doors in the common areas. These belong to the building and are almost always maintained under the landlord's or building manager's program.
Then there is the tenancy layer: whatever was added or altered for a specific fit-out. Extra detectors where new rooms were built, additional occupant-warning speakers, magnetic door holders, fire-rated doors within the tenancy, and — increasingly — access-controlled doors that must release when the alarm sounds. These exist because of your fit-out, and that is precisely why responsibility for them is less clear-cut.
Routine testing is mandatory, not optional
Fire protection systems in commercial buildings must be routinely inspected and tested. The framework most maintenance programs follow is AS 1851, the Australian Standard for the routine servicing of fire protection systems and equipment, which sets out inspection and testing activities and their frequencies across detection, occupant warning, sprinklers, extinguishers, fire doors and more. Building owners also have ongoing obligations under building regulations to keep safety measures maintained.
The obligation itself is not in question. What varies — and what this guide is really about — is whose program a given device sits in, and who pays for its testing. That is a lease and building-management question, not a standards question.
Who is responsible depends on the lease
There is no universal split, but a common pattern in office leases looks something like this:
- Landlord: base-building fire systems, tested under the building's maintenance contract, with costs often recovered through outgoings.
- Tenant: systems and devices installed for the tenancy, either maintained directly by the tenant or added to the building's program with costs passed on.
Where a specific device falls can turn on the lease wording, the fit-out approval documents, and the arrangements the building manager runs. Two tenancies in the same tower can sit differently. So the honest answer to "tenant or landlord?" is: check your lease, ask your building manager, and get professional advice if the documents are unclear.
Why fit-outs change the obligations
A fit-out is rarely neutral to the fire systems. New walls change where smoke is detected; new rooms may need their own detectors and warning speakers; a server room might add its own suppression; and every electronically locked door creates an interface that must release the door on alarm. Each of those changes adds devices that need routine testing — and each one raises the question of whose schedule they are on.
The failure mode is mundane: the fit-out finishes, the certifier signs off, everyone moves in — and the new devices never make it into the building's maintenance schedule. Nobody decided to skip the testing; the devices just never got handed over to anyone's program. Years later a routine audit, an insurance question or a lease-end inspection finds the gap.
The interface problem: security meets fire
The overlap tenants most often miss is between access control and the fire system. Doors held locked by access control generally have to unlock when the fire alarm operates, and that behaviour has to be tested — not assumed — whenever either system changes. It is a boundary where two contractors' scopes meet, which is exactly where responsibilities go missing.
This is where we sit in the picture. Highrise Systems delivers fire testing and certification with our accredited fire partners — accredited practitioners do the fire work, and we coordinate the tenancy side: capturing what the fit-out changed, making sure interfaced doors behave correctly on alarm, and making sure the tenancy devices are in someone's testing schedule rather than no one's.
What to actually do
- Read the lease's repair, maintenance and outgoings clauses for what they say about fire services — and get advice if the wording is unclear.
- Ask your building manager, in writing, what the building's testing program covers within your tenancy, and what it does not.
- List what your fit-out added or altered: detectors, speakers, door interfaces, suppression, fire doors. The fit-out drawings and certifier's documents are the starting point.
- Make sure everything on that list is in a routine testing schedule — the building's or your own — with an accredited provider responsible for it.
- Keep the test records. If responsibility is ever disputed, the records of what was tested, when, and by whom are what settle it.