The London Fire Brigade says false alarms account for a third of all incidents attended by crews.
Earlier this year the the capital’s fire authority agreed a new safety plan which includes measures to recover the cost of attending such incidents.
The charges come into force from Wednesday, January 1st 2014 after which both commercial and public sector property owners will be fined £290 plus VAT if the Brigade is called out to ten or more false alarms in any 12 month period.
The LFB says if the charges had been levied this year it would have recovered around £800,000.
James Cleverly, Chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, said: “The public deserve and expect firefighters to be available to attend genuine emergencies rather than attending thousands of false alarms. The vast bulk of automatic fire alarm calls turn out not to be fires, these are often caused by poor management or maintenance of alarm systems.
“This is not a money making exercise but we are leading the way in recovering our spend on unwanted call outs and educating building managers to properly maintain their fire alarm systems.”
The Brigade has also recently announced “tough” fines for rescuing people from poorly maintained lifts.
Both sets of charges follow a reduction in central Government and City Hall funding for the Brigade which has been blamed for the closure of fire stations and the axing of fire engines.
