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Asbestos management in buildings - the tennants responsibilities
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Posted By Martin Taylor
What are the responsibilities of a tennant in a rented property with respect to repair/removal of asbestos.
We rent a warehouse and the landlord has just carried out a 5 year inspection - identified that some areas need remedial action and is now requiring that the repairs are done (arranged) by us and obviously paid for by us.
Needless to say this is the first time that this responsibility has been raised.
Can a landlord shift the responsibility for asbestos management by wording in a lease document?
I can understand if the damage was caused by our activity but there is no evidence that this wasn't already in place when we took on the lease.
thoughts, comments and advice please
Martin
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Bob Youel
if you are the day to day controller of your immediate work area then you have the asbestos management duty etc - if there is a common area which you share/have access to; you cannot simply allow your employees to be contaminated in that area
Additionally you have immediate responsibility for your employees and others affected by your undertaking irrespective of other factors
duties and liabilities cannot be easily passed from one to another even if it is written into a contract - it sounds like the contract you signed put all the cards into the landlords hands - Re-evaluate your T&C's but I am afraid that you cannot get away from managing asbestos in your control area
NB: Environmental laws etc re asbestos are even tougher!
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Chris L
In the absence of any clearly worded delegation of responsibility regards Asbestos, its usually decided by the degree of overall maintenance responsibility. If you're responsible for maintaining the building fabric, then you're responsible for managing the asbestos.
In addition to this of course, you have a duty of care towards your employees anyway and this should not be the first time the questions been raised - who's been managing the asbestos the last 5 years?
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By steven bentham
martin
Tennants at work do have legal duties to comply exactly the same as the landlord does.
If you have a repair and fix type of contract and you are arranging to carry out construction work that will disturb asbestos then I would say it is obvious you have statutory duties to work safely.
Regards
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Rank: Guest
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Posted By Ron Hunter Martin, Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 (you can view this view www.opsi.gov.uk)does define the "duty holder" as "every person who has, by virtue of a contract or tenancy.......and where there is more than one such duty-holder, the relative contribution to be made by each such person in complying with the requirements (of this regulation) will be determined by the nature and extent of the maintenance and repair obligation owed by that person" In that respect, the answer to your question is "yes" -your Tenancy Agreement can place certain legal responsibilities on you (and in this respect I would disagree with some earlier posts). The actual extent of your 'duty holder' responsibilities and relationship with your landlord in that regard should be clearly defined in the Tenancy Agreement. Your best bet may be to take some legal advice on the wording of your Tenancy Agreement - you may be in for a bit of a wrangle on this!
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