Rank: Forum user 
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Hi - Our business rents out houses for some of our staff to live in and has been advised (by our water treatment company) to ask all landlords for legionella risk assessments for their water systems within those (domestic) premises. One of the premises comes as part of the job contract (the person has to live there) but the others are purely 'incentives' - there if you would like to use them. The landlords which we rent from are local. I suspect that the water company have got the wrong end of the stick here and that the regs don't apply (to us) in this specfic instance because they are domestic premises and the persons are not at work when in them, but I'm not 100% sure and wanted to check with the experts! TIA
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Rank: Super forum user
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It is my understanding that the ACOP (L8) regarding the control of legionella applies to work activities and premises controlled in connection with a trade or business. This in my view includes rented properties by virtue of the business aspect and landlord/tenant relationship. The domestic nature of the arrangement is a red herring. Having said that however the risk in a domestic situation is likely to be minimum especially if there is a good throughput of water, minimal storage and more so if systems are directly fed from the mains. There used to be an exemption for systems with less than 300 litres of stored water but this was done away with some years ago. Others may have a different view.
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Rank: Forum user
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I would agree with your Water Quality Treatment company's suggestion that it would be good practice for the Landlord to conduct appropriate assessment.
I guess the legal context would relate to the undertaking of the Landlord (social or private) in the wider context of Section 3 of HASAWA, although I can't help but feel the HSE are trying to pull a fast one with the above referenced guidance (INDG376).
That guide refers to new legal duties being introduced by the ACoP, which is of course patent nonsense. An ACoP is an ACoP, not law. In this instance the ACoP is specifically associate with the COSHH Regs, a set of Regs where it becomes even more tenuous to find a Landlord/Tenant context.
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Rank: Forum user
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Thanks for the info and I agree that it's good practice. My problem is that I can predict that our landlords will tell us to push off and bother someone else....we are then left with another problem of do we continue to pursue or not....which I suppose on the basis of risk is not of the highest priority. It's also slightly worrying being myself a private landlord with previously no intention of carrying out this kind of RA.
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