Quick question as im curious for the answer. Our company recently undertaken roofing works for a council tenant. Done on a Friday but the scaffolder was not able to dismantle until the Monday, the tenant wasn't happy that the scaffold was to be left up over the weekend which then turned him violent, he was making threats to the owner of the scaffolding firm unless his men removed it that day. As the scaffolder responded that he was not able to, the tenant (a scaffolder himself) decided to dismantle it himself. The question here is, had the tenant had an accident. Who would be held liable and what would the legal implications would there have been? Our company? (although we acted in every way possible to make sure that the scaffold was left safe for the weekend), The scaffolding firm? or would the Tenant be held fully liable although its his job but was not undertaking the task in the course of his employment?

I've had experience of similar situations on housing estates in the past. I think there are several issues here; Firstly there is the customer relations issues with when should the scaffold have come down and why wasn't it, would it have been reasonable for the scaffolder to have worked the weekend? Was the scaffold causing an obstruction or just a minor annoyance? It could have been entirely reasonable to have left the scaffold and after all said and done it is a part of the tennants rent agreement to allow reasonable access and contractors don't always have control over every eventuality. The second issue is the attitude and threats from the tennant, which is absolutely unacceptable (criminal in fact). The third issue is the tennant dismantling the scaffold himself. If he is a qualified scaffolder he would know that this is an offence under safety law as he is unauthorised and doesn't have insurance. There are a few thing I would have done (and have in similar circumstances): First of all appologised proffussely and reasonably for the inconvenience and made a definite appointment for first thing Monday (and kept it). Called the police to deal with a violent tennant and requested that the copper informs the tennant that interfering with the scaffold is an offence and could leave him liable to prosecution if there's an accident especially if a member of the public was injured. Hopefully at this point the tennant would be on the back foot and realise that you were't being intimidated. Report the tennant to the landlord, technically he is in breach of his tennancy agreement and the landlord bears some responsibility in controlling the tennant. As far as liability is concerned, morally the tennant would be responsible if he had injured himself or caused and accident. But if there was an accident or the even worse if a scaffolder was injured because the tennant had made the scaffold unsafe someone would try to point the blame either onto you or the scaffolder the tennant may also be perverse enough to make a claim against your insurance which would cost money even if nothing came of it. In any event there you or the scaffolder would have to defend or justify your actions again at some sort of cost. And although it would serve the tennant right if he did get injured it could just as well be an innocent party who gets hurt.