Apartment building fire safety in Belgium: obligations, smoke alarms and works to vote on

After a visit to the building, a letter from the fire and rescue zone (brandweerzone / zone de secours) reaches the syndic, and it asks for specific things: clear the second-floor landing, replace a door, restore a light. Or a co-owner reports that the smoke alarm in the corridor has been beeping for six months and that nobody is dealing with it. Either way, the same question comes up at the general meeting (GM): who pays, and does it need a vote?

Fire safety in an apartment building is read on three levels that are best kept apart. Construction standards are federal and look at the building as it was built. Obligations for the dwelling are regional and look at each apartment (and, in Flanders, at certain shared spaces too). Finally, the municipality (gemeente) and the fire service can impose measures on your building in particular. Our reading: place your building within these three layers before you talk about budget. Most deadlocks at meetings arise because everyone is relying on a different layer.

Is your building subject to the federal basic standards?

The royal decree of 7 July 1994 sets the basic standards for the prevention of fire and explosion: compartmentation, fire resistance of walls, width and number of escape routes, reaction to fire of materials. That text structures fire safety in Belgian construction, but it does not say what many co-owners think it says.

According to the FPS Home Affairs (Civil Security), the royal decree of 7 July 1994 does not apply to existing buildings.

It applies to buildings yet to be built and to extensions of existing buildings, for the extension only. High-rise and medium-rise buildings whose building application was submitted before 26 May 1995, and low-rise buildings whose application predates 1 January 1998, therefore fall outside its scope (Civil Security, FPS Home Affairs). In other words, a building from the sixties does not have to be rebuilt to today’s standards just because those standards exist.

The distinction between low-rise, medium-rise and high-rise buildings is not decorative, because it determines the requirements of the decree. It rests on how the emergency services can intervene: the 25 m working height of a 30 m aerial ladder separates the medium-rise from the high-rise building. Above that, evacuation can no longer rely on a ladder and everything depends on the construction.

In practice, your starting point is not the royal decree but the building file. The building permit, the plans, any fire service advice issued at the time and the post-intervention file (PID / DIU) say what the building promised to be. If later works altered a stairwell, removed a door or converted an attic, that is where the gap shows.

Smoke alarms: who installs them, who pays?

This is the subject that comes up most often, and the one on which Flanders and Brussels do not say the same thing.

Sources: Flemish Government for Flanders, Brussels Housing for the Brussels-Capital Region. In Flanders, the smoke alarm obligations do not apply if the dwelling or the building has an automatic fire detection installation with a control panel. In Brussels, from four devices, the smoke alarms may also be connected to a centralised installation instead of being interconnected.

For a co-ownership, the consequence is clear as far as the dwellings are concerned. These rules target the dwelling: the obligation lies with the owner of each unit (or, when let in Flanders, with the landlord), and the expense is not a service charge. A syndic who charges the smoke alarms in the apartments to all the co-owners according to their shares (aandelen / quotités)GlossaryFraction of the common parts attached to each unit, set in the deed of division according to the respective value of the private parts. Shares determine the number of votes at the general meeting and can only be changed with the unanimous agreement of all co-owners. See the glossary is therefore making a choice that neither region requires, and that must be based on the co-ownership regulations or on a decision of the meeting.

That leaves the corridors and stairwells, which are nobody’s dwelling. Here the regions differ. In Flanders, since the Order of 14 October 2022, a smoke alarm is compulsory in every shared-use space containing a technical installation. Because these are common partsGlossaryParts of the building or land that belong to all co-owners according to their shares, such as the roof, the entrance hall or shared pipes. Where the title deeds are silent or contradictory, parts intended for the use of all or some co-owners are deemed common. See the glossary, the point belongs on the agenda of the owners’ association (VME/ACP). In Brussels, the decision does not cover these spaces. Where a building has detection in its common parts beyond what these rules require, it is usually because the permit, a municipal regulation or a request from the fire service provided for it. Check which of the three before deciding to replace or remove anything: an installation fitted to comply with an advice is not taken out because it goes off too often.

We advise the syndic to keep a simple record, unit by unit, of what each co-owner states they have installed. It is not an inspection, and the association does not have to carry one out. It is the only way to know, on the day of an incident, whether the building was equipped.

In the common parts, the essentials are not voted on

Part of a building’s fire safety costs nothing and is not voted on. It depends on the everyday use of the common parts.

• Stairs, landings and corridors remain escape routes: anything left there reduces their usable width at the moment it matters.
• A fire door only protects when it is closed. A wedge, a fire extinguisher on the floor or a badly adjusted door closer cancels out its function.
• Plant rooms, the boiler room, the bin store and the meter room are kept closed and are not used as junk rooms.
• Emergency lighting and exit signs are tested, like any other equipment.
• Access for the emergency services counts as much as the inside: a readable house number, a clear entrance, access to the façade maintained.

The purpose of the owners’ association is the preservation and management of the building. Reminding people of these practices is therefore fully part of the syndic’s role, and the house rules are the natural place to set them down once and for all, rather than repeating them at every meeting.

What majority do you need to vote the measures, and on what budget?

As soon as a measure involves works to the common parts, the question of the vote arises, and the answer depends on where the measure comes from.

Works affecting the common parts are in principle decided by a two-thirds majority of the votes. Two categories escape that threshold: works required by law and protective and provisional management works, which can be decided by an absolute majorityGlossaryDefault voting rule at the general meeting: more than half of the votes of the co-owners present or represented at the time of the vote. Abstentions, spoilt and blank votes are not counted as votes cast. See the glossary of the votes of the co-owners present or represented (art. 3.88, § 1, 1°, b)).

The dividing line is therefore this. A fire-rated landing door that a text or a decision of the authorities requires to be replaced falls under the absolute majority. A centralised detection installation that the meeting chooses because it considers it useful falls under two thirds. We advise putting the two categories on the agenda separately, each with its legal basis: an item that is wrongly classified gets voted at the wrong majority and challenged afterwards. The full mechanics of counting votes are in voting rules and majorities.

Between two meetings, the syndic is not powerless. They are responsible for carrying out all protective actsGlossaryMeasures intended to protect the building or the rights of the association without waiting for a decision of the general meeting, such as a temporary repair after an insured loss. The syndic is responsible for carrying them out. See the glossary and all acts of provisional management (art. 3.89, § 5, 2°). A broken door closer is repaired without waiting. And if the meeting blocks works that are urgent and necessary, any co-owner can obtain authorisation from the court to carry them out alone, at the association’s expense (art. 3.92, § 5).

As for funding, a safety measure follows the same rules as any other project: a recurring expense goes in the budget, a non-periodic expense is taken from the reserve fund. The full timeline, from quote to acceptance of the works, is described in co-ownership building works.

After a fire service visit

A visit ends with a report, sometimes with recommendations, sometimes with measures to be taken within a deadline. That document belongs to the building file: it is filed, passed on to the co-ownership council if there is one, and put on the agenda.

Three reflexes stop the situation from getting bogged down. Acknowledge receipt and, if the report is technical, ask what is an obligation and what is advice. Get figures before calling the meeting, so that it votes on amounts and not on intentions. Reply to the authorities with the chosen timeline, even if the works take several months: a co-ownership that has voted and planned is not in the same position as one that stays silent.

The mayor (burgemeester / bourgmestre) has administrative police powers in fire matters and can impose measures on a specific building. That is why fire service advice does not belong in the category of suggestions.

Finally, a word on insurance. A documented failure to comply with a safety measure can weigh heavily after an incident, and the building’s fire policy is worth rereading at that point: the page on co-ownership insurance sets out what it covers and what it leaves out. For the rest of the building’s upkeep, lift and boiler inspections included, see maintenance of common parts, and for every situation in the life of the building, the page on day-to-day living in a co-ownership.