Of all the responsibilities faced by property managers, fire and building safety is one of the most complex, and “resident engagement” is one of the most frustratingly intangible and difficult to evidence.

We understand the stakes involved, but the operational obstacles are all too real. Property managers battle fragmented, cumbersome paperwork while juggling the competing priorities of contractors and leaseholders—and they still can’t escape the constant, nagging sense that the job is never quite complete.

Legislative burnout

Simply doing the basics sucks up vast amounts of energy and resources. Yet legislation increasingly requires Responsible Persons and Principal Accountable Persons (PAPs) to understand and engage with residents, with much of the practical work falling to property managers.

The new Residential PEEPs regulations came into force on 6 April 2026. They apply in England to all high-rise residential buildings—those at least 18 metres high or with at least seven storeys—and to residential buildings over 11 metres that operate a simultaneous evacuation strategy.

But I’m not just talking about Residential PEEPs. The Fire Safety (England) Regulations, the Fire Safety Order, the Building Safety Act (and the 30-odd bits of secondary legislation supporting it) all result in hundreds of nuanced and overlapping requirements. Information, responsibilities and evidence are scattered across too many people, systems and spreadsheets. It feels impossible to be truly on top of everything.

What if most of the day-to-day requirements could be combined into a system that all but eliminated the repetition, frustration and anxiety? Something designed to slot in painlessly with the systems you already use, keep everybody informed and build an audit trail as the work actually happens.

It doesn't have to be so frustrating

That was our starting point for RiskBase Engage. We set out to make better use of the data already held about a building and bring resident communications, PEEPs, PCFRAs, flat entrance door checks and remedial works together in one place. The ambition: not just a nice-to-have, but an essential operational solution that just works.

RiskBase has spent nearly 20 years building risk assessment, inspection and compliance software. We understand complex safety processes, security and data privacy. We needed to package that into something purpose-built for residential block management. Feedback so far tells us that we’re nailing it.

Residents already feel dictated to rather than engaged. One leaseholder described it to us as “fire safety fatigue”

Beyond the operational benefits, we saw the potential to make residents’ involvement in fire safety easier, more positive and productive. This matters because many residents already feel dictated to rather than engaged. One leaseholder described it to us as “fire safety fatigue”. Engage keeps residents informed without bombarding them, uses plain English and gives each interaction an obvious purpose.

Gone are generic forms and one-size-fits-all questionnaires. Instead, Engage collects all the essential occupancy, vulnerability and assistance information, schedules door checks and manages remedial works through fast, simple, resident-friendly journeys—via email, SMS, WhatsApp, quick-scan QR codes and even old-fashioned post, which we auto-generate and send on demand.

As Engage chugs away, auto-verifying resident information, it produces validated data ready to feed back into property management systems. Dwellant integration is currently in testing, with MRI Qube next and others to follow. In campaigns to date, Engage has successfully identified and validated resident information for more than 80% of the 10,000 homes approached. 

Door checks and PEEPs working together

The same principle transforms flat entrance door checks. An in-house or third-party inspector can choose dates and invite residents to confirm availability. Engage handles the communications and follow-ups, while confirmed appointments and relevant resident information appear in real time in the inspection app.

Leaseholders can accept a quotation or arrange the work themselves and upload evidence of completion.

Once a check is complete, any required remedial work is recorded. Where that work is the leaseholder’s responsibility, Engage automatically notifies them. They can accept a quotation or arrange the work themselves and upload evidence for review. The platform will relentlessly nag on the property manager’s behalf, while maintaining an evidence trail of every message, response, action and outstanding item. 

Vulnerability information feeds into an integrated Residential PEEPs process, while PCFRAs can be delivered internally or through an external provider.

The system automatically keeps the prescribed resident information and Building Emergency Evacuation Plan outputs up to date, ready to place in the Secure Information Box (SIB) or share in the format requested by the local fire and rescue service.

Consent, privacy and access controls are handled natively, without terrifying your data protection officer by trying to manage sensitive information on a spreadsheet.