I believe the landlord would be seen as the duty holder and responsible person. The landlord can then nominate competent help to assist with discharge of duties - the contractors.

Thanks both. Not domestic property.

OK then. Not domestic but commercial - read the lease terms thoroughly for who has duties for what. Don't assume that the actual Landlord has any liability that is not specifically addressed in the lease. Given your original post, I suspect that you'll find that the Landlord is not the responsible party for your legionella management unless you're in a multi-occ building as one of several tenants and there is a common source of potentially legionella contaminated water. Frank Hallett

How can the landlord 'have no employees'? You're obviously communicating with someone, presumably a Director at least - so also an employee! Quite possible to have no employees other than Directors, but I don't believe you can have a company in UK without Directors. The landlord also has duties to persons not in their employment. If they seek to discharge these by contracting company X that in turn contracts company Y, then the details of these contracts (as Frank says) and how diligently the landlord set them up and monitored that the arrangements were effective in practice could be an area of interest if there was an incident or accident?

OK safetyamateur, Whether the Landlord or their Agent [Intermediary] has any employees is simply not relevant to your occupation of the property. As it's a single-occupancy commercial premise, it's all about the lease conditions; only after you've identifed who is responsible for what within the lease can you proceed with apportioning responsibility for anything. Your observation re "devolve the task but not the duty is", in this context, only determined by what the lease says about specific topics. Let's just consider your legionella: Your company leases the property, and for this argument, the Landlord retains the duty under the lease to maintain the water distribution systems throughout. In this very simplified, and unlikely, example, the Landlord will be responsible for the maintenance of the system in an acceptably legionella-free condition. This will mean the Landlords water safety contractor having the right to enter at periods determined by the Landlord - not you - and to go wherever they need to go without you having the ability to prevent them [all subject to an identified degree of "reasonableness" in the Lease]. I'm sure that you can see where this is going, so I'm stopping there. Frank Hallett

I'm with Frank on this. It seems likely if you're in control of the entire premises that you will effectively be taking on the duty to assess and control legionella risks (despite their protestations the landlord will arguably always have some involvement regarding incoming mains and quality of the plant they lease to you) unless this is specifically discussed and delegated within the tenancy agreement. On the plus side this exact issue is highly likely to be addressed in the final version of HSG274 which should hopefully be published within the next 3 months. There is some London based guidance available from City of London and City of Westminster on the issue if you google around for it although its not totally applicable to your scenario.

Duty is assigned via the relevant legislation, not the ACoP (L8). If the company has no employees - presumably they may be employed by a parent company and seconded to an SPV (as this sounds like PFI to me) then no duty can be assigned as an employer. A duty does exist however under HASAWA which requires them to do whatever is required as far as the extent of their control allows. This might be for example, employing a competent contractor to maintain the systems for them via contract. They will then need to evidence monitoring the contractor and coordinating activity to demonstrate they are doing what is reasonable for them to do in their position. Then the FM company and the occupier would have employers duties via COSHH etc. So in summary, all would be regarded as duty holders, but the SPV (if that is indeed what it is) have a duty limited to and by HASAWA. The other stakeholders being duty holders in line with the requirements set within L8. Phew...!

Forgot to add Where you have " This'll probably go to legal beagles to sort out" It could be interesting to know what they come up with, if your willing at the end of the day. Chris

I think Frank is correct. I would suggest that the answer to this is likely to lie in the terms of the lease. Full repair and maintenance leases are common practice. I would start there. The landlord may not be the occupier for the purposes of OLA, 'You' might well be. Similarly, the landlord might not be an employer. The fact that you can talk to him/her, doesn't make them an employer.