Who is responsible for fire inspections, landlord or tenant, in Ontario? The owner, in the eyes of the fire department, whatever the lease says. Division C Section 1.2 of the Ontario Fire Code puts compliance on the owner. A commercial lease can shift the work and the cost to a tenant, and many net leases do for the tenant’s own space. But if the tenant misses an inspection, the fire department is entitled to take it up with the owner. The fix is a lease clause that names who does what, plus one inspection record that covers the whole building.
What does the Ontario Fire Code say about who is responsible for fire inspections?
Okay, so first things first. The Ontario Fire Code is written to the owner. Division C Section 1.2 makes the owner responsible for carrying out the Code, and nothing in the Code says a lease can change that.
The reason being that the fire department needs one person to hold to account for the building.
“Owner” in the Code is a wide word. It takes in the registered owner and can also take in a person in control of the building. So a property manager, or a single tenant who runs the whole building, can be on the hook as well.
So what that means is responsibility can be shared in practice, but it is never lifted off the owner. The law behind the Code is the Fire Protection and Prevention Act, 1997, and an inspection order under it can be directed to the owner or the occupant.
A tenant in a Windsor plaza once told me his lease made the landlord responsible for the extinguishers. The landlord’s copy said the opposite. When Windsor Fire & Rescue Services asked for the records, it asked the owner, because the owner is who the Code names.
So the lease decides who pays and who books. The Code decides who answers.
What does a commercial lease usually say about fire safety responsibility?
The big thing is this: most commercial leases split fire protection the same way they split everything else, into base building and tenant space. Base building systems stay with the landlord. Whatever sits inside the demised premises goes to the tenant, often as one line in the repair clause that nobody reads until something fails.
| System | Who usually does the work under a net lease | Who the Ontario Fire Code holds responsible | What to check in your lease |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fire alarm panel, common-area detectors, pull stations and signals | Landlord | Owner | Who pays for the annual CAN/ULC-S536:2019 inspection, and who gets the report |
| Sprinkler mains, risers, control valves, fire pump and backflow preventer | Landlord | Owner | Who does the NFPA 25 quarterly and annual items, and who holds the two-year record |
| Sprinkler heads and branch lines inside the unit | Landlord for inspection; tenant for any change the tenant makes | Owner | Whether a tenant fit-out that moves a sprinkler needs landlord sign-off and a licensed sprinkler fitter |
| Portable extinguishers inside the unit | Tenant, in many net leases | Owner | Who does the monthly check and the annual NFPA 10 maintenance, and who keeps the tags |
| Kitchen hood suppression (restaurant tenants) | Tenant | Owner | Semi-annual NFPA 17A inspection, with a copy of the report to the landlord |
| Emergency lighting and exit signs inside the unit | Varies by lease | Owner | Monthly test and annual full-duration test under Division B Section 2.7.3 |
| Fire safety plan | Owner, with tenant contacts | Owner | Who updates the contact pages each year and who runs the drills under Division B Section 2.8 |
I hold a sprinkler fitter’s licence and no law degree, so have counsel read the clause before you sign it. What a fitter can tell you is that the clause needs the system, the frequency, the standard, who books it, who pays, and where the report goes.
That is as opposed to the usual wording, which says the tenant “shall maintain all fire safety equipment within the premises”. That line does not say monthly, annual, NFPA 10, or who gets the report.
So a good clause reads like a schedule.
Is the tenant responsible for fire extinguishers in their unit?
Under the lease, usually yes. Under the Code, the owner is still responsible for the extinguishers being there, checked monthly and maintained every year to NFPA 10 (Division B Section 6.2). The extinguisher is the item that falls through the gap most often, because it is small and every tenant tends to have a different supplier.
A 6-unit industrial plaza in LaSalle had 3 different extinguisher tags across the units, 2 of them more than a year out of date. One unit had no extinguisher at all, because the last tenant took it with them.
The landlord’s annual sprinkler inspection was clean. Nobody had looked at the extinguishers as a building, as opposed to 6 separate problems. One contractor, one visit, one page per unit fixed it, and the landlord billed each unit back under the lease.
So tenant fire extinguisher responsibility is real, and it is a cost question. The compliance question still sits with the owner. Our post on fire extinguisher inspection covers the monthly and annual items in detail.
Where does the gap open, and how does it fail an inspection?
One thing to know: the gap almost never opens on the big systems, because those are base building and the landlord books them. It opens in three smaller places.
The first is tenant changes: a new wall, a mezzanine or racking stacked to the ceiling can block sprinklers or leave a room with no coverage. The tenant did not call a fitter, because the lease did not tell them to. NFPA 25 asks the owner to look for those changes (4.1.5), and the fire prevention officer is entitled to ask about them.
The second is records. Division C Section 1.1.2 of the Ontario Fire Code requires records of tests, inspections and corrective measures for two years. The tenant has the extinguisher tags, the landlord has the sprinkler report, and neither side has both when Windsor Fire & Rescue Services asks to see two years on site.
The third is vacancies. An empty unit gets its heat turned down, and NFPA 25 (4.1.2) wants water-filled pipe kept above 4 C. In Windsor-Essex that is a frozen branch line in February, and nobody in the lease was watching it.
So the gap sits in the handoff between two parties who each think the other one has it. In Windsor, a re-inspection after a failed business licence inspection costs $185 plus HST, on top of the repair.
How do landlord and tenant close the gap before the next inspection?
Okay, so this is the part you can fix in a week. Start with the lease schedule, even as a side letter if the lease is already signed. List each system, its frequency and standard, who books it and who pays, using the table above as the template.
Then put the whole building on one inspection. One contractor inspects every system in every unit on one visit, and the report comes back with a page per unit. The landlord holds the master record and each tenant gets their pages.
Add a fit-out rule. Any tenant change that touches a wall, a ceiling or storage height gets a call to the sprinkler contractor before the work, as opposed to after the inspection.
Our guide to fire protection for Windsor property managers covers the master schedule, and how often a commercial building needs a fire inspection in Ontario lists every frequency. So the owner keeps one file, the tenants pay their share, and nobody finds out at the inspection.
Frequently asked questions
Who is responsible for fire inspections, the landlord or the tenant, in Ontario?
The owner is responsible under Division C Section 1.2 of the Ontario Fire Code, and that does not change with a lease. A commercial lease can make the tenant do the work and pay for it inside their unit, and many net leases do. If the tenant misses an inspection, the fire department is entitled to take the matter up with the owner.
Does commercial lease fire safety responsibility change what the fire department can ask for?
No. The fire prevention officer is entitled to ask for two years of records for every system in the building under Division C Section 1.1.2 of the Ontario Fire Code, no matter who did the work. The lease only decides which party books and pays for each item. The owner should have every record, including the ones a tenant’s contractor produced.
Is tenant fire extinguisher responsibility written into the Ontario Fire Code?
No. The Code adopts NFPA 10 in Division B Section 6.2 and places the duty on the owner. Tenant fire extinguisher responsibility comes from the lease, which can make the tenant pay for the monthly check and the annual maintenance in their own unit. The owner should still get a copy of the tag record each year.
Can a tenant be charged for a fire code violation in Ontario?
The Fire Protection and Prevention Act, 1997 allows an inspection order to be directed to the owner or the occupant, and charges can follow an order that is not met. On conviction, the court decides the penalty. In practice, the owner is the first person asked, which is why the lease should say who fixes what.
The lease says the tenant handles it. Is that not enough?
A lease clause moves the cost, and the Ontario Fire Code still names the owner, because the Code does not read leases. After 3,000+ inspections in the last few years, the multi-tenant buildings with clean files are the ones inspected as one building: one report, a page per unit, one two-year record. Red Seal’s fire system inspections cover every system in every unit on one visit, with a report within 24 hours, guaranteed within 48 hours or 20% comes off the price.
Put the whole building on one inspection record. Send your building address to Red Seal and get a fixed-fee inspection quote within 24 hours. Get a fixed-fee quote or call 548-888-FIRE (3473).
Red Seal Fire Protection inspects, tests and repairs fire sprinkler, fire alarm, fire extinguisher, fire pump and backflow systems for commercial, industrial and multi-residential buildings in Windsor-Essex, Chatham-Kent, Sarnia-Lambton and London, Ontario.
