What is a legionella risk assessment?

A legionella risk assessment is a physical inspection of the hot and cold water system in a residential rental property to identify whether conditions are present which would enable legionella bacteria to colonise in the system and cause harm to your tenants.

 

An effective risk assessment for legionella needs to assess a variety of risk factors including the adequacy of pipe insulation, the age and condition of water storage tanks, temperature outputs, susceptible tenants and the existence of any dead-end pipe runs. 

 

 

 

A legionella  risk assessment usually takes between 30-40 minutes depending on the experience, qualificaiton and proficiency of whoever is undertaking the assessment and the findings are produced in a risk assessment report which highlights any risks and identifies whether remedial action is required.

 

An effective risk assessment will also clarify roles and responsibilites for anyone who may be affected by the risk assessment, and in the case of residential rental properties, these responsiblities will fall upon tenants (to actively manage risks within the property), landlords (to ensure that any remedial works are undertaken within a reasonable time scale) or letting agents (to ensure that the landlord has been alerted to the risks and what actions need to be taken and by when. 

 

 

It is vital that there is clarity between a letting agent and a landlord as to who has what responsibilites when it comes to legionella control within a rental property as any uncertainty, will cause problems in the event of a legionella case being reported. 

 

As with all risk assessments, there are a number of ways to deal with issues that have been identified as higher risk and these are known as the 4 Ts. 

 

1. Treat: Treating the risk means proactively putting into place measures that will significantly reduce the risk. No risk can ever be totally eliminated, and it isn't the intention of the Health and Safety Executive or any other body to make unnecessarily burdensome requirements on Landlords or Letting Agents. It is a case of evidencing that you have assessed the risks and put measures in place to deal with them where necessary. 

 

 

 

2. Tolerate: Many landlords, agents, investors will end up falling into Tolerating risks by default as they are unaware of them in the first place. Tolerating a risk is about accepting that there is a risk and then consciously making a decision to accept the risk level and also any subsequent consequences should an event occur. 

 

 

 

An example of this might be that a driver chooses not to insure their car, knowing full well that if they are caught they may face fines, points and even have their vehicle impounded and destroyed. Yes despite this fact there are many individuals who choose to drive their vehicle illegally.  

 

3. Terminate: Another option is to eliminate the risk all together by ceasing to continue with an activity. This means that if you are a landlord, you can simply sell up and eliminate the risks of managing your portfolio completely. In many cases this is not practical, but in certain cases for certain businesses, this might be an effective strategy to reduce risk exposure. 

 

 

 

4. Transfer: This simply means that the component of risk is transferred and managed, either through outsourcing the activity or taking out adequate insurance to protect yourself should an event arise. 

 

 

 

Unfortuantely in the case of an event, ignorance is not a valid case to argue, so in the end, it is best to be fully educated as to your responsilbities and then make decision on how you will manage the situation.