Asbestos duties for landlords, employers and commercial property

Who has the duty

Regulation 4 of CAR 2012 places the duty to manage asbestos on the dutyholder of non-domestic premises — typically the owner, landlord, managing agent or employer with responsibility for maintenance and repair. Where responsibility is shared, the duty is shared in proportion to each party’s maintenance/repair obligations.

Crucially, this catches more than obvious commercial buildings. The common parts of blocks of flats and HMOs, the non-domestic elements of mixed-use buildings, and shared plant rooms all fall within scope, even though the individual flats themselves may not.

What the duty requires

To comply, the dutyholder must, so far as is reasonable:

• Take reasonable steps to find out whether asbestos is present, and its amount and condition (usually via a management survey).
• Presume materials contain asbestos unless there is strong evidence they do not.
• Keep an up-to-date written record — an asbestos register — of the location and condition of ACMs.
• Assess the risk and prepare a written asbestos management plan setting out how the risk will be managed.
• Monitor and re-inspect the condition of ACMs regularly, and review the plan.
• Provide the information to anyone liable to disturb the material (for example contractors before they start work).

Landlords of domestic property

Self-contained let dwellings are largely outside the formal Regulation 4 duty, but landlords still owe a duty of care to tenants and to contractors under wider health and safety law, and the duty to manage does apply to the communal/non-domestic parts they control. Before any refurbishment, a refurbishment/demolition survey is needed regardless.

Getting compliant

A management survey is the usual starting point: it produces the register and risk assessment you need to build a management plan. From there, the duty is an ongoing cycle of re-inspection, plan review and reassessment whenever the building changes or is refurbished.