Two instruments. Two drivers. One external wall. If you manage a residential building in England and Wales, understanding the difference between these could be the gap between legal compliance and legal exposure, or between a sale completing and collapsing.
Start Here: The Legal Obligation Most People Miss
Before the EWS1 form and before PAS 9980, there was a question that took years to resolve: did the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 apply to a building’s external walls?
The Fire Safety Act 2021 answered it. Definitively.
The Act explicitly extended the Responsible Person’s duties under the Fire Safety Order to include the structure and external walls of multi-occupied residential buildings, including cladding, insulation, balconies, and windows. This was not new guidance. It was legal clarification with immediate effect.
What the Act prescribes is this: the Responsible Person must have assessed the fire risk posed by their building’s external wall system. It does not specify the mechanism for doing so. For many buildings (particularly taller, more complex, or externally clad blocks), a FRAEW conducted to PAS 9980 is the recognised methodology for discharging that duty in a defensible and proportionate way. For simpler or lower-risk buildings, a different approach may be appropriate.
The baseline, however, is clear: assessing external wall fire risk is a statutory duty, not a professional preference. Everything that follows sits on top of that.
What Is a FRAEW, and What Is PAS 9980?
A Fire Risk Appraisal of External Walls is a structured, evidence-led assessment of a building’s external wall construction. It examines the materials present, how those materials behave in fire conditions, the performance of cavity barriers and fire stopping, and the overall risk profile for occupants.
PAS 9980:2022 is the British Standard that provides the methodological framework for conducting one. It codifies what a competent fire engineer must consider, how they must approach the assessment, and how they must document and communicate their findings.
Think of PAS 9980 as the professional standard. The FRAEW is the assessment conducted to that standard. Together, they represent the current benchmark for discharging the Responsible Person’s legal duty for qualifying buildings under the Fire Safety Act 2021.
What Is an EWS1 Form?
The EWS1 (External Wall System 1) form is a different instrument entirely, and understanding its origin explains why.
Introduced in December 2019 by UK Finance and RICS, the EWS1 was a rapid industry response to a specific commercial crisis: mortgage lenders had no standardised way to assess whether a residential building’s external wall system affected its lending value. Following Grenfell, valuers were blanket-declining to lend on flats in multi-storey blocks. The market needed a consistent mechanism. The EWS1 form was it.
Its purpose is commercial, not regulatory. It exists to give lenders and valuers the documented assurance they need to make lending decisions, not to fulfil a statutory duty.
The form produces one of the following outcomes:
Category A: no combustible primary cladding materials identified in the external wall
- A1: No attachments present that require assessment
- A2: Attachments are present; assessed risk is sufficiently low
- A3: Attachments are present and require remediation before risk is acceptable
Category B: combustible materials are present in the primary external wall construction
- B1: Risk from those materials has been assessed and is considered tolerable; no remediation required
- B2: Risk is not tolerable, and remediation is required
These are professional judgements about the nature and tolerability of fire risk, not administrative tick boxes.
How the Two Relate and Why They Are Not the Same
Here is where market confusion takes root.
The EWS1 form was introduced in 2019. PAS 9980 was published in 2022. The EWS1 predates the guidance by three years, which means no intrinsic link exists between them. Assessors completed thousands of EWS1 forms before the methodology existed.
What they share is this: the level of inspection required to complete an EWS1 form with genuine professional integrity is similar to that of a FRAEW. A FRAEW conducted to PAS 9980 can give rise to an EWS1 form as an output. But the reverse is not automatically true, and nothing in the EWS1 form requires a FRAEW to have been conducted behind it.
This is the gap that has caused significant harm in the market. And it is the reason why understanding both instruments (and their relationship) matters.
Why the Method of Assessment Matters
PAS 9980 is explicit about something that often gets lost in market conversation: proportionality. The standard actively discourages unnecessary assessments. Not every building requires a full, intrusive physical inspection, and completing one where it isn’t warranted wastes resources and creates no additional safety value.
For low-rise blocks, or buildings with no cladding and minimal external wall complexity, a desktop review of available information may be a compliant and proportionate approach to a FRAEW. The standard is clear on this.
The EWS1 form is different. RICS is unambiguous: you cannot rely on documentation alone to complete an EWS1. Physical inspection is required. The reason is straightforward: you cannot verify the primary materials in an external wall system from its surface finish alone. Products are substituted during construction. Specifications change. What appears on a drawing or in a developer’s handover pack is frequently not what is actually in the wall. Without physical evidence, no one can make a professional judgement about the presence or absence of combustible primary materials. Where the composition remains unclear after inspection, RICS guidance specifies that intrusive testing, drilling into the wall or removing cladding sections at multiple locations, may be required.
The distinction matters: a proportionate desktop FRAEW may be entirely appropriate for a simple, low-risk building. But no EWS1 form, for any building, can be completed on the basis of a desktop review alone. A form produced without physical inspection is not a professional judgement; it’s an assumption with a signature on it, and the liability sits accordingly.
What You Actually Need
If you are a Responsible Person managing a multi-occupied residential building:
You have a legal duty under the Fire Safety Act 2021 to assess the fire risk posed by your building’s external walls. For most qualifying buildings, a FRAEW conducted to PAS 9980 is the recognised and defensible way to discharge that duty. This obligation exists regardless of whether any transaction is in progress.
If you are a leaseholder or building owner facing a blocked sale or refused mortgage:
You need a FRAEW conducted to PAS 9980 standard, one that produces an EWS1 form as a documented output. Do not commission an EWS1 form in isolation. Commission the assessment that makes it defensible.
Before instructing either:
Check whether a valid assessment already exists for your building. Speak to your freeholder or managing agent. Building owners should hold a compliant FRAEW with an EWS1 output at building level and make it available to all leaseholders.
Competence Is Non-Negotiable
PAS 9980 is explicit: the assessor must have the appropriate competence to evaluate external wall systems and make professional fire engineering judgements. An EWS1 form signed by someone without that competence is not merely inadequate but it also creates liability for the assessor, the building owner, and anyone who relies on it.
At DALA Surveys, every assessment is conducted to PAS 9980 standards by qualified professionals. Our reports are evidence-based, defensible, and produced on the basis of physical inspection. We work with Responsible Persons, freeholders, managing agents, and housing associations across England, Scotland, and Wales.
Two Problems. One Conversation.
Whether you have a legal duty to fulfil or a transaction to unblock, the starting point is the same.
Call us on 02381 551000 or email enquiries@thedala.group and we’ll tell you exactly what you need and how quickly we can deliver it.
References and Further Reading
- Fire Safety Act 2021 — UK legislation extending Responsible Person duties to external walls
- Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 — the primary fire safety legislation underpinning Responsible Person duties
- PAS 9980:2022 — Fire Risk Appraisals of External Walls — BSI British Standard for FRAEW methodology
- RICS Cladding External Wall System (EWS) FAQs — RICS guidance on EWS1 requirements including inspection standards
- EWS1 Form Version 3 — RICS — the current EWS1 form
- UK Finance Industry Statement on Cladding — the lender position on EWS1 requirements
- RICS EWS1 Form Update and Valuation Guidance — RICS updates to the EWS1 process
