Legionella Risk Assessment in Rental Properties

Research undertaken by The Legionella Risk Assessment Register has shown that professional letting agents who focus on both landlord and tenant care equally are now helping their landlords comply with HSE legislation on the requirement for a simple legionella risk assessment.
Whilst many offer to undertake or arrange the assessment on behalf of landlords, there are a growing number who choose to inform their landlords that they can undertake the assessment themselves.
However, the survey, undertaken during October and November 2016 also uncovered a small number of letting agents who are choosing to ignore the legislation and are not informing their landlords of the HSE requirement. This is not only putting the landlord at risk but could also be putting tenant’s health at risk in certain properties.
Off 250 agents contacted 210 said they have made arrangements for the assessment, 24 said they were looking into the options available and 16 said they had not made any plans regarding the assessment.
A spokesman for LRA Register said “Some letting agents are simply not acting in the best interest of their landlords. Our advice to anyone who lets through an agent would be to seek out an agent who acts in best interest of both the tenant and landlord. This way you end up with a happy tenant and a less stressful tenancy.
At the Legionella Risk Assessment Register we can put landlords in touch with a local agency who will ensure the property water system is assessed as required.”
The company are monitoring the market closely and will be conducting further research in 2017 in order to update their findings and also to check with tenants around the UK to assess the percentage of rental households which have not been provided with the required assessment.
Our advice to all letting agents is to make provision for the legionella risk assessments in order to protect their tenants and landlords as well as to cover themselves in the event of an unfortunate case of a legionella case developing.
The risk assessment process is relatively simple for a domestic rental property and there is no reason for letting agents not to inform their landlords of the legal requirement.
Any tenant concerned about the quality of their water system is encouraged to contact the LRA register via email at reports@lraregister.com.

The Legionella Risk Assessment Registers offer online training to letting agents and landlords to enable them to undertake Legionella Risk Assessments in domestic rental properties. The register also provides online software for producing compliant assessments.

LRA Register
225 Ashfield Road
Thornton Cleveleys
FY5 3JA

This release was published on openPR.