The Complete Guide to Asbestos Compliance for Landlords & Businesses

The law: Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012

If you own, lease or manage a commercial building, or look after the shared parts of a block of flats, this is the law that sets your asbestos duties. HSE enforces it across Great Britain. It covers finding, managing and working with asbestos.

For most people, one part matters day to day: the duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic premises. It doesn't ask you to rip asbestos out. It asks you to know where it is, know its condition, and manage it so nobody breathes in fibres.

Blue and brown asbestos were banned in the UK in 1985, and the rest in 1999. So any building put up or refurbished before 2000 may contain asbestos. That's why the duty exists, and why it catches so many of Britain's buildings.

This guide covers what the duty asks of you, who carries it, where the line falls between homes and other buildings, and the steps that add up to compliance. If a term is new to you, our asbestos glossary explains it.

What the duty to manage requires

It's a set of practical jobs, not a vague instruction to "be careful". If you're responsible for maintaining or repairing non-domestic premises, you must take reasonable steps to:

• Find out if asbestos is there and, if so, how much, where, and what condition it's in.
• Presume materials contain asbestos unless you have strong evidence they don't.
• Keep an up-to-date record of where it is and its condition. This is usually called an asbestos register.
• Assess the risk from what you've found or presumed.
• Write a management plan, put it into action, and review it.
• Tell anyone liable to disturb it where it is and what condition it's in, such as maintenance staff and contractors.

It's a cycle: find, record, assess, plan, tell people, then review. You keep it going for as long as you hold the premises. It isn't a form you fill in once. First, though, who actually carries the duty?

Who is the duty-holder?

The duty-holder is whoever is responsible for maintaining and repairing the premises. That's usually set out in the lease or tenancy agreement, so start there. Whoever it makes responsible for the fabric of the building generally carries the duty.

If no lease or tenancy says who does the repairs, the duty falls to whoever controls the premises in practice. It can also be shared. For example, a landlord may look after the structure and common areas while a tenant maintains their own unit.

Each party then carries the duty for the parts they control. Work together so nothing falls through the gap between you.

Not sure where the line sits for you? Don't let it drift. An unmanaged building puts at risk everyone who works in or visits it, and any contractor who later cuts or drills into it. An asbestos management consultancy can help you work out who's responsible and set up a system that complies from the start.

Does it apply to landlords?

This is where most people get caught out, so here it is plainly. The duty to manage covers non-domestic premises: workplaces and commercial buildings of every kind. Offices, shops, factories, warehouses, schools, surgeries, pubs and hotels are all included.

It also covers the common parts of residential buildings. In a block of flats, that means the shared stairwells, corridors, entrance halls, plant and boiler rooms, and roof spaces.

It does not cover the inside of a private home. If you let a single house or flat, the duty to manage doesn't apply to the inside of it, as it would to an office. The shared parts of a block are covered. The inside of a let home isn't. For a house, situation by situation, see do you need an asbestos survey on a house?

So a landlord with a portfolio of pre-2000 flats is on both sides of the line. The insides of the flats are outside the duty. The shared parts of each block are inside it. The safe habit is to treat the shared parts of any block built before 2000 as needing a survey, a register and a plan.

The compliance steps, one by one

Meeting the duty comes down to six steps you repeat. Keep the paperwork current and you have the core of a system you can defend. Here's the shape of it, with each step explained below.

Step 1: find the asbestos (management survey)

You can't manage what you haven't found, and you can't confirm asbestos by eye. The usual way to find out is a management survey. A competent surveyor inspects the premises, samples suspect materials where needed, and reports what's there, where it is and its condition.

HSE's survey guide sets out how it's done. You can survey, or you can presume materials contain asbestos. Presuming everything is usually more restrictive and costs more to work around, so most duty-holders survey. Our guide to the types of asbestos survey explains how a management survey differs from the more intrusive refurbishment and demolition survey.

Step 2: record it (asbestos register)

What the survey finds goes into an asbestos register. It records where asbestos is, or is presumed to be, across the building, with its type, location and condition. Everyone relies on it, so it has to be accurate and kept current.

When a material is repaired, removed or gets worse, update the register to match. A register that no longer matches the building is worse than useless, because people trust it.

Step 3: assess the risk

Next, assess the risk from each material. What matters most isn't the type of asbestos. It's how likely it is to release fibres, which depends on its condition and how much normal use of the building disturbs it.

Sound, sealed material in a quiet plant room is very different from damaged insulation by a busy corridor. The assessment lets you decide, one material at a time, whether to leave it and monitor it, protect it, or have it removed. Our guide on whether asbestos is dangerous explains the health risk.

Step 4: write and implement a management plan

The asbestos management plan is the written document saying how you'll manage the asbestos you've found or presumed. It records what's there and its condition, who's responsible, how it'll be monitored, and what happens if it's damaged or needs work.

The plan has to be acted on and kept current, not written once and filed. The official guide to managing asbestos in buildings is the full reference for a plan you can stand behind.

Step 5: inform anyone who might disturb it

A register and plan only protect people who see them. You have to tell anyone liable to disturb the asbestos where it is and what condition it's in. That means your maintenance team and every contractor before they start, from the electrician chasing a wall to the roofer on the cement sheets.

Where employees may work on or near asbestos, employers must also give them suitable information, instruction and training. Nobody should cut into a material without knowing what's behind it.

Step 6: review and re-inspect

Buildings change and materials age. Review the register and plan regularly, and whenever something could affect the asbestos, such as damage, refurbishment or a change of use.

Re-inspections check that materials are still in the condition the register says, and feed any change back into the records. This turns a one-off survey into ongoing compliance. It's also where a management consultancy often takes the routine off your hands.

Before building work: the refurbishment survey

A management survey and a good register cover the day-to-day life of a building. They aren't designed for when you start knocking it about. Before refurbishment, demolition or any work that breaks into the fabric, you need a refurbishment and demolition survey of the areas affected.

It's more intrusive on purpose. Its job is to find the asbestos hidden in walls, floors, ducts and structure before the work disturbs it.

Skipping it is one of the most common and most serious failures, because that's exactly when fibres get released. With the survey done first, your contractors know what they're dealing with and can plan safe removal where it's needed.

Higher-risk removal is licensable work. It must be done by an HSE-licensed contractor, not a general builder. If your project involves confirmed asbestos, arranging licensed asbestos removal through a competent provider is part of doing the job lawfully.

What happens if you don't comply

HSE enforces these rules, and its powers are real. An inspector who finds a duty-holder failing to manage asbestos can serve an improvement notice, telling you to put things right. Or they can serve a prohibition notice, stopping a dangerous activity outright.

Where the failure is serious, it can prosecute, and the courts can impose substantial fines. In the most serious cases, individuals can face prison.

Employers also have wider duties under general health and safety law to protect employees and others from risks to their health. Asbestos exposure falls squarely within that.

Penalties vary case by case. The point is that the duty to manage is a legal requirement with teeth. The bigger cost is human: failing to manage asbestos puts staff, contractors and the public at risk of breathing in fibres that can cause fatal disease decades later. That's what the paperwork is really for.

Strong vs weak management

Here are two duty-holders facing the same thing: an old boiler room in the common parts of a 1970s block, with lagged pipework nobody has checked in years. One meets the duty. The other only looks like it does.

Compliance is a living system, not a document. A survey that never becomes a kept-up register, a plan you follow and a briefing for the people who might disturb the material leaves you exposed, however thick the report.

Common compliance mistakes

Most failures aren't deliberate. They come from a few honest misunderstandings about what the duty asks for. These are the ones that come up again and again.

Assuming a building is too new, or too small, to matter

Any premises built or refurbished before 2000 may contain asbestos, and the duty to manage has no lower size limit. A small shop, a modest office or the shared hallway of a two-flat conversion can all be covered. Age and use decide whether you need to act, not size.

Confusing the domestic and non-domestic line

Some landlords think the duty covers everything they own, or none of it. In fact the insides of single private lets are outside it. The common parts of blocks of flats, and of houses split into flats, are inside it. Get the line wrong either way and you waste effort or leave a real risk unmanaged.

Treating the survey as the finish line

A survey is the start of compliance, not the end. Without a kept-up register, a plan you actually follow and a way of telling contractors, the report is just paper. The duty is an ongoing cycle of recording, assessing, informing and reviewing.

Not telling the people who might disturb it

A register locked in a manager's office protects no one. It has to reach the maintenance staff and contractors who could cut, drill or break into a material, before they start. Employees who may work near asbestos also need the information, instruction and training the law requires.

Skipping the refurbishment survey before building work

A management survey and register cover normal use, not intrusive work. Before any refurbishment or demolition, you need a refurbishment and demolition survey of the area affected. Any licensable removal must go to an HSE-licensed contractor. Missing this step is where some of the most dangerous exposures happen.

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