Is the landlord or managing agent responsible?

Over the years I have encountered all kinds of landlords and letting and management agents. In the vast majority of cases, they have been rational, knowledgeable and always interested to learn more about more effectively managing their properties. It stands to reason as far as I am concerned, because it is usually exactly this type of person that will get in touch with us, to ask us questions and help them clarify their position in terms of their responsibilities, and it's fantastic!

GET YOUR FREE LANDLORD LETTER TEMPLATE HERE

Every now and then though, we come across a different breed. It is the breed that deliberately want to cut corners, put blame outside of themselves and do not follow any kind of moral or ethical code to maximise their profit and then cry ignorance if they get caught out or have a complaint or other action brought against them.

I recently had a discussion with an agent whom I quote..

"I've been doing this for 20 years and I have NEVER heard anything about this Legionella thing you're talking about!". 

It was one of those situations where you couldn't teach an old dog new tricks, however, you probably couldn't teach this old dog any old tricks either.

If a managing agent of 20 years experience has no idea of what the law requires when it comes to Health and Safety within in the private rental sector, frankly, it is a situation that beggars belief!

It is quite likely that this agent will ensure that annual gas safety checks are carried out, and possibly ask to see an electrical installation certificate, but unlikely to be aware of much else, as long as the rent is coming in. If an event occured at a property then it is also likely that the blame would be directed back to the landlord.

On the other hand, I have come across landlords, who tell me with some confidence,

"My agent looks after all of that"

Then when they get in touch with the agent afterwards, the agent tells them one of a couple of things. The first one is, that they don't need to have a legionella risk assessment done at all, or the second one is that again, they haven't even heard of such a thing and its nothing to worry about.

So who exactly IS responsible for arranging a legionella risk assessment?
 

The person responsible under the legislation (the duty holder) is the person in control of the property.

The management agreement between the landlord and letting/managing agent should clearly stipulate who is responsible for repairs, maintenance and compliance issues, e.g. gas safety certificates.

The party responsible for those will also be responsible for legionella risk assessments. So if the agreement states that the Landlord needs to deal with these issues, then the landlord will be ultimately responsible and if it is a fully managed agreement, then the agent takes responsibility.

If there is no written agreement, or it does not specify who has responsibility, the duty is placed on whomever has control of the premises and this would have to be argued out in the event of an incident.

I have seen various practices in dealing with the issues of the risk assessment. Some agents, once they are aware of what they need to do inform their landlords that they will be arranging to carry out the assessments on the landlord's behalf, explain why they are necessary and how much they will be charged for this. To this they give landlords the option to opt out and make their own arrangements, but the landlord needs to state this in writing.

This is a really pragmatic approach as in the first instant, the agent has undertaken their duty of care to inform their landlords as to their duties, they have offered to provide a solution so that they landlord has met their duties, and they have also provided the landlord with the option to investigate further and take full responsibilty themselves.

This approach prevents any unnecessary confrontation and complaints directly with the agent and puts the ball firmly in the court of the landlord in terms of how to proceed.

A step further would of course be to ask to have a valid risk assessment forwarded by the landlord should they make their own arrangements so that you have a complete record for the property file.

If you are a letting agent and would like a free, editable template letter to send out to your landlords, then you can get one at the link below.

GET YOUR FREE LANDLORD LETTER TEMPLATE HERE

You will be able to add your own logo and edit the text to suit your specific situation.

If you have any queries or would like to speak to us for advice, then please feel free to give us a call.

CALL NOW ON 0845 077 9335!

What should I be advising my tenants?

When we have been dealing with Legionella Risk Assessments, some agents and landlords have been a bit worried about what to tell their tenants. They are concerned that the tenanats will be alarmed and panic unnecessarily, thinking that the reason for undertaking a risk assessment is because there is a problem. If a tenant is not familiar with rental property Health and Safety, and in many cases they are not, they may have a few questions.

We have discovered that if you fully explain to the tenant what is being done and why it is being done, they are actually relieved that they are dealing with a responsible and professional landlord or agency. If on the other hand, you are a bit reluctant to tell them what and why you are doing, then they will naturally feel that there is something to worry about.

The critical thing that many landlords and agents overlook is that the tenants themselves are absolutely critical in ensuring their own health and safety when they are renting a property. If you, as a landlord or agent have instructed the tenant to undertake certain activities, such as checking the smoke alarms periodically, or running little used water outlets once a week, then they do have a responsibility in doing this. It is part of the management plan for reducing risk.

Generally speaking, the advice you give to tenants should fall around the following:

• Advice on what actions they need to carry out to keep themselves safe
• Advice on the frequency at which outlets need to be flushed through
• Advice on what to do in the event that the hot water stops working
• Advice on what to do if the water seems lukewarm and is not reaching an appropriate temperature
• Cleaning advice

The Best Practice is to hand out a leaflet or tenant handbook as part of your pre-let procedure and draw their attention to its content. We can provide you with a tenant’s legionella factsheet which you are free to copy and distribute.

Just drop us a line on 0845 077 9335.

 

A Common Sense Approach to Risk Assessment for Property Professionals

If you are a large portfolio landlord, then it make a lot of sense to ensure that you get professional and competent risk assessments carried out on your portfolio. Under the Housing Health and Safety Risk Rating anyone that is renting out property is required to have undertaken a risk assessment. The HHSRR highlights 6 areas and 29 hazards that should be assessed!

Of these 29 Hazards, you have to identify deficiencies in each area, then assess the likelihood of something happening and the potential serverity of the event. You then need to determine any remedial work that needs to be undertaken and assign responsiblity and timescale to ensure that these deficiencies are tackled to reduce the risks to a reasonably practical level.

With all of this, it is very easy to ask yourself why you even got involved with investing in and managing property at all, as all this additional time effort and resource feels like it is doing nothing but dwindling your every decreasing investment returns. This is particularly an amplified issue for smaller property investors and landlords, who find it more challenging due to having a smaller portfolio to carry the financial burden of getting the property to a practical level of health and safety compliance.

The purpose of this blog post is to show that the whole risk assessment approach doesn't have to be massively complex or time consuming, and also is a way to protect your investment and income over the longer term, assuming that you are in it for the longer term.

As a former educator, I have spent lots of time assessing the quality of teaching, and regardless of whatever evidence from observations and feedback I have gathered over the years, there is a very simple acid test that gave me a really good yardstick to apply. It was simply this. Would I really want this individual to be the teacher of my child? If the gut response was "no" then this would set off alarm bells that would need me to dig deeper. Without exception, there was always evidence to be found that corners were being cut, progress was limited and there was little enjoyment in learning for the kids.

As an investor myself, I use the same acid test when I am looking at property either from a refurbishment point of view, or as a legionella risk assessor. Would I be happy with my child living at this property? If the gut feeling is no, then there is probable a very good reason for it. There is a strong likelihood that there is something about the property which would put my child at risk somehow. And this is why the the HHSRR system exists - to ensure that people have a decent quality of environment in which to live in, without any unnecessary risk to their health - and not to impose an additional layer of beaurocracy which further eats into your profits.

The upside of taking a risk management approach is that your property will generally end up being a better quality investment, as tenants will tend to be happier as you are a pro-active manager of your property, which will, in theory at least, result in longer tenancies and fewer void periods, both of which will go a long way to securing and stabalising your investment.

Underlying principles

To carry out a risk assessment there are basically 4 components. The first is to identify potential hazards. The good news is that the HHSRR has taken the leg work out of this and actually identifies the potential hazards for you.

The second component is make a general determination as to the likelihood of a specific hazard to result in an incident that will impact on the health and safety of an affected individual. This will be your tenant in the first instance, however, it could also extend to visitors to the property including any trades that you may need to send to the property from time to time to carry out maintenance work.

The third component is to determine the potential impact or consequences if an incident was to happen. Would the impact be a minor convenience, or could it result in something more serious, such as the contraction of a disease, or a slip or fall that may lead to much longer health and mobility problems for the individual concerned.

The final component is then to determine whether there is anything that can be done to reduce either the likelihood or the impact of an incident, and ideally both, and then to plan in these actions so that the desired effect is achieved.

There is no such thing as "Risk Free"

In reality, just in a state of existing, we are exposed to risk every single day of our lives. If we are just sitting down, there is a risk that when we get up, we pull a muscle or something. We cannot possibly mitigate every risk and the good news is that as a responsible property investor, landlord, or managing agent, you don't have to. You just need to ensure that you have at the very least carried out a sufficient risk assessment to ensure that your tenants are safe and there is nothing that you have done that will potentially harm their health.

People Who Might Be Affected

Certain tenants may be more at risk than others. This is simply the nature of the world we live in. Elderly tenants may be more at risk in the cold winter months if the heating is not working, Asthmatic tenants may be at risk if there is a damp problem and young children may be at greater risk if there is a vermin investation. Typically, though, a well maintained property will pose very little risk to anyone, however, if you are having a new tenant moving in, it is always worth knowing a little bit about them so that you have the piece of mind that you need. 

What Are You Reasonably Doing to Reduce the Risk?

The key work here is "Reasonably". If a building is structurally unsound, the most reasonable course of action would be not to rent it out until the structural issues have been resolved. Seems like common sense, however there are other areas that are not so black and white. What about mould and damp, what are reasonable steps to take with that? Let's say that you have a property where the tenants has reported mould. You have it checked out and find out that the mould has been caused by the tenant constantly drying their clothes in the house, but then never opening the windows to let fresh air ciculate.

The most reasonable thing to do would be to educate the tenant that they need to ventilate by opening a window when they are drying their clothes, and also to treat the mould. It would not be reasonable to continually pay to have the mould treated every time the tenant reported it, if the actions of the tenant themselves was the cause of the issue. Unfortunately not all tenants exercise this level of common sense and in the event of a significant incident, you will need to be able to demonstrate that you have taken reasonable actions to rectify and deal with the issues. This is where good record keeping and property management will be worth their weight in gold. 

If you are still not confident enough to carry out your own risk assessment, then you can get a professional in to carry this out for you. Any credible professional will understand the legal requirements, will carry appropriate indemnity insurance and will ensure that you have the documentary evidence that you need to prove that you have carried out your duties.

However, if you call them after the event, don't be surprised if they are not particularly receptive to assisting you.

How To Carry Out a Periodic Review of a Risk Assessment

It is often a misperception that once you have carried out a risk assessment on your rental property, that this is the end of it and you are fully compliant. This isn't always necessarily true as there is also further work to be done to ensure that the risk assessments are current, any issues identified in them are dealth with appropriately and proportionately and that they are subject to a periodic review. 

This can sometimes feel like yet a further burden on your time, energy and money, however it doesn't have to be that way at all. 

In this blog post I will explain what is involved, and how to make this action really simple and straightforward. 

The first step step is to define what "Periodic" mean. This is often a "how long is a piece of string" question. There is no legal definitition of the term periodic so it is something that is open to interpretation. Having said this, a periodic review requires a certain level of judgement by the property owner or manager in terms of what this means. There are a number of factors to consider when determining what is an adequate review period. 

Considerations:

• The age and type of property
• Have there been any any significant changes at the property since you carried out your risk assessment including changes in occupants?
• Is there anything from the risk assessment that still has not been adequately dealth with?
• Has anyone spotted a further problem or issue at the property?
• Have there been any accidents or near misses at the property? 

Procedure:

• First of all review the existing risk assessment for the property
• Identify any actions to minimise or remove risks that still haven't been carried out based on the risk assessment
• Schedule in these actions, on a priority basis (most urgent first)
• Review any changes that may have been done to the property, (new systems, appliances, extensions etc...)
• Carry out a risk assessment on these changes - in most cases if the changes have been carried out professionally, the risks at the property will have been reduced
• Diarise any things that need to be dealt with on an annual basis such as Gas Safety Certificates
• Determine an overall review date for the next review: This should be determined based on the actions identified and the timescale for their implementation. e.g. if there is an urgent replacement for an old water tank to be completed, and this needs to be done within 6 weeks, then review in 6 weeks.
• Sign and date the risk assessment so that you have evidence that a review was actually carried out in the event of a claim or incident. 

Typically Gas Safety needs to be done on an annual basis, Legionella need to be reviewed around every 2 years, electricial around every 5 years, but in any case, the property should be in a safe and lettable condition at the beginning of every new tenancy. 

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them below in the comments section and we will deal with them as soon as we can.

How to make a Right to Rent check

Give us a call on 

0845 077 9335 

To Book Your Legionella Risk Assessment NOW!

Do all properties need a legionella risk assessment?

There are some common misconceptions that we hear all the time about which properties need a legionella risk assessment and which ones don't.

The short answer to the question as to whether or not all properties need have a legionella risk assessment is No, not all properties do.

Owner-occupied properties (i.e. your home) do not require a legionella risk assessment but all tenanted properties do need to be assessed for risks under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System.

This applies whether they are residential, commercial, social housing, HMO’s, halls of residence, flats, houses, bedsits, new-builds or partly owner-occupied. Even the common parts of a leasehold block need assessing.

Offices and properties used for business or retail also need an assessment if water is used and there is a means of transmitting water droplets (i.e. a shower, spray tap or sprinklers).

You can carry out a risk assessment yourself, however if, there is a legionella incident, and an investigation follows, then you will need to demonstrate to the HSE that an appropriate risk assessment was carried out competently.

If you do not feel confident or competent to do so, then we can help.

Give us a call on 

0845 077 9335 

To Book Your Legionella Risk Assessment NOW!