The Asbestos Duty to Manage Explained

The duty falls on whoever is responsible for the maintenance and repair of non-domestic premises. Where a lease or contract sets that out, the document decides it; where it does not, the duty sits with whoever has control in practice. In a multi-let building the duty can be shared, with the landlord holding it for common parts and structure while tenants hold it within their demise — and both need to cooperate, because asbestos does not respect a lease plan.

This is worth settling in writing rather than assuming, because it is a common failure point at acquisition or on a change of managing agent. The duty transfers with responsibility, not with knowledge: inheriting a building without an asbestos register does not suspend the duty, it means the first job is establishing what is there.

Compliance is evidenced by three things. The asbestos register records what and where the asbestos-containing materials are, their type, and their condition. The management plan sets out how the risk from each is being controlled — whether by leaving it in place and monitoring, sealing or enclosing it, or removing it — and who is responsible for what. Together they must be reviewed regularly and whenever something changes: a material is damaged, work is done, or the building's use alters.

The register is only useful if it reaches the people who might disturb the material. Contractors and maintenance engineers must be given the relevant information before they start work, and that transfer is where the duty most often breaks down in practice. A register in a folder in the FM office does not discharge the duty if the engineer drilling into a riser never saw it. Making the register genuinely accessible at the point of work — rather than merely existing — is what turns the paperwork into protection.