WORKPLACE - 03.07.2018

Is your landlord letting you down?

Poor show

You lease part of a building and are not responsible for the common areas and installations, roof, structure or exterior. You can see that these areas are not being well maintained.

The audit identified that the lift does not have a current certificate under the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 , the fire risk assessment is of a poor standard, routine testing of installations has not taken place, plus there are other problem areas including general maintenance of the building.

As these matters are outside your own area of responsibility, should they concern you?

Still liable

The difficulty you have is that as an employer you have certain duties under health and safety legislation. These tend not to align with the contractual arrangements you have in a multi-occupancy premises.

For example, as an employer your duties include: (1)  ensuring that your staff have a safe place of work with safe access and egress routes; (2)  carrying out a fire risk assessment and ensuring that risk control measures are implemented; (3) providing a safe electrical system; and (4) making sure that any passenger lift used by your staff is safe.

Your lease may designate that the landlord has responsibility in all of these areas, but if they fail to fulfil their duties, the ramifications could affect you too. Your landlord’s omissions could lead to injuries to your staff or visitors for which you will share liability, cause a fire leading to loss of your premises or business disruption due to loss of services.

The bottom line is that you must ensure that the premises is safe to use.

Tip 1. The first course of action is to check the terms and conditions of your lease. It may spell out quite clearly the landlord’s responsibilities. Alternatively, there may be supporting documentation, such as a tenant’s handbook.

Tip 2. Even if there’s no paperwork to back up your position, it’s still worth approaching your landlord to ask them to fulfil their side of the contract.

Tip 3. If appropriate, arrange a meeting with other tenants to get them on your side.

Protect yourself

Ultimately, whilst there may be compromises to make, don’t settle for a building which doesn’t have a safe means of escape in the event of fire, or without statutory safety inspections having been completed. The last resort will be to move to another premises.

Tip 1. If you don’t receive confirmation that a lift has received its statutory inspection in the last six months, don’t allow your staff to use it.

Tip 2. Going forward, ask for a regular list of evidence from your landlord to demonstrate that periodic inspection and testing is being completed as required (see The next step ).

For a shared premises responsibilities policy, visit http://tipsandadvice-healthandsafety.co.uk/download (HS 16.21.02).