Legionella Risk Assessment for Landlords: Is It Actually a Legal Requirement?

 Short answer: yes. If you're a landlord you have a legal duty to assess the risk of legionella in your rental property's water system, and it applies whether you own one flat or fifty.


WHERE THE DUTY COMES FROM


The duty comes from the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, backed up by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, which treats legionella bacteria as a hazardous substance you have to control. The Health and Safety Executive's Approved Code of Practice, known as L8, sets out what a suitable and sufficient assessment actually looks like in practice. L8 talks in terms of employers, but HSE guidance is clear it extends to anyone who controls premises with a water system, which includes landlords.


WHAT "DOING ONE" ACTUALLY MEANS


For most standard residential properties, a legionella risk assessment is a straightforward, low cost check, not the intensive testing regime a hotel or hospital would need. It looks at things like water storage tanks, whether any pipework is a dead leg with stagnant water sitting in it, water temperatures, and whether the property has any features that create a particular risk, like an unused shower head. Assessing this isn't a job that needs a specialist qualification for most single let and small HMO properties, but it does need to be done properly and recorded.


DOES IT NEED TO BE IN WRITING


Businesses with five or more employees are legally required to keep written legionella records, but the guidance is consistently clear that every landlord should keep one anyway, in writing, regardless of portfolio size. If there's ever an incident, being able to show you assessed the risk and acted on it is the difference between having done your legal duty and not.


HOW OFTEN TO REVIEW IT


The standard advice is to review the assessment at least every two years for a typical residential property, and sooner than that if anything changes: a new tenant, a change to the plumbing, or if the property's been empty for an extended period, since stagnant water is when the risk goes up.


GETTING ONE DONE


If you manage rental property and don't have a legionella risk assessment on file, or you're not sure the one you have still reflects the property, it's part of the compliance document pack I put together for UK landlords, alongside your fire risk assessment and HMO paperwork. You can see what's included here: https://www.fiverr.com/tonycarlyon/create-a-complete-uk-landlord-health-and-safety-compliance-document-pack

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