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.

 

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.

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!

What's Your Attitude To Risk?

This is one of the the most fundamental questions you should ask yourself when you are either investing or running your own business and often one of the most neglected.

It’s also one of those questions that once you have determined the answer, it can make a lot of decisions that follow it so much easier because once you have definitively answered this question, you have established a simple criteria as to whether or not the investment, or activity is within your risk tolerance for it. It will be either yes or no. Decision made!

If you are into property, most of your risk decisions will be based around whether the investment in front of you is worth the relative return for the risks involved in securing the financing, and spending the time and effort in getting the property or development to where you want it, without falling foul of legislation or regulation.

Is Your Attitude to Risk Consistent?

Attitude to risk is also more fluid than you might expect. You attitude to risk is often very different when you are young and don’t know any better or have any major commitments in life, so you might take more risks. It’s small wonder why insurance premiums for younger drivers are much higher. They exhibit more risky behaviours because they have less experience, they are more prone to try and impress others, and they are less mature, often not taking into account the broader implications of short term decisions.

Attitude to risk can change according to context. You may be aggressive in your investment or business activities when you are first starting out, because you are ambitious, and ambition, sometimes leads you to focus more on acquisition than protection, however, when it comes to protecting your family, you may be much more cautious in your approach, so you may put life insurance in place or some other protection mechanism.

What Determines Your Attitude To Risk?

There are two key drivers for attitude to risk and there is also a cure if you are not sure.

The first driver is hope or expectation and the second is fear. Hope is the driver that moves you towards a better future. We all hope that an investment or activity we undertake is going to make our future condition better somehow. This may be financially, emotionally or even relating to our health. This hope and expectation drive us to try new things and take new risks.

Hope however is kept in check by fear. Fear is what gets us really thinking about what might go wrong, and what if what we are doing doesn’t turn out as we hope and we end up in a worse condition that we started with.

Then there is the balance between the two, which is basically what our attitude to risk is all about. If we are optimistic and hopeful with expectations of success, then we are more willing to take the risks on, however if we are more pessimistic and doubt whether or not things will work out the way we hope or expect, then we are more likely to err on the side of caution and pass opportunities by and in doing so, will never fulfil our potential or radically change our condition or circumstances.

So what is the cure? What is the sweet spot that will keep us engaging positively with opportunities and protect us from the potential down sides? The cure is knowledge or at least our closest approximation to what is most likely to happen in any given circumstance.

When it comes to risk there are two considerations that need to be made for any given situation after identifying what could go wrong. The first is the likelihood of it going wrong, and the second is the impact on our lives or businesses if it does go wrong.

Likelihood

Likelihood of an event occurring is about probabilities. A probabilities can be anything from 1 where an event will almost certainly occur to 0 where an event will almost certainly never occur. We can illustrate this with an example of throwing a die. There is a one in six chance that any number will land. If I wanted the number 6 to land, then the probability of this event occurring is one in six. However, the probability of it not occurring is five in one, so it is much more likely that this event will  not occur than will. So what do you do?

Impact / Consequences

Well that then really depends on the second consideration which is what the real world impact or consequences would be. If for example you were taking a punt on winning £10 if your number came up by putting £10 at stake would you do it?

The chances of you losing £10 are five in six, and the chances of you winning are one in six. Based on this alone, it is probably a bet you will lose. However, the consequences of losing are that we only lose £10, which for most people is worth a bit of a punt. But what if the consequences were a lot greater? What if instead of £10 you bet your life savings in order to have a chance of doubling them. If you win, you have doubled in an instant everything you have worked your entire life to squirrel away. Just think what a difference that would make to your life?

But if you lose, and you are more likely to lose, then you have just lost everything that it has taken years to build. The consequences are pretty significant. So in the first instant, when the consequences were only £10, you might take the risk because you can handle the consequences if you lose, which is likely. But in the second instance you might not because the consequences of losing are too great.

Balancing It Out

However, is there anything you can do to change the probabilities? You could of course load the die, or you might decide that £100 is the maximum you could afford to lose after which the consequences are too much versus the potential gain you might have. This is where you have determined what your risk tolerance is for this particular proposition and now you know how you will deal with it.

Once you know your risk tolerance, you will also have  really good indication as to your attitude towards your risks.

You may discover that you are carefree and very optimistic in which case you may be taking unnecessary risks and not always considered the wider ranging consequences of your actions or inactions.

You may discover that you are overly cautious and pessimistic in which case you may not be taking enough risks that will move your life and business forward in a positive direction. You are potentially overthinking the consequences and doubt your ability to deal with any challenges that might occur.

And finally, you may discover that you have a healthy attitude towards risk, recognising what an appropriate amount of risk is for each activity that you undertake, and where the risk is excessive, to take measures to reduce either its likelihood of occurring, the negative impact of its consequences or a combination of both.

Conclusion

Strategically speaking, a healthy and mature attitude towards risk and managing it will not only keep you moving in a forward direction, it will also help you protect everything you have put into place as well, without being overly cautious.

So what’s your attitude to risk?
Has your attitude to risk held you back and led you to make foolish decisions?
If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently knowing what you now know?

Leave a comment below and let me know.