Landlords and property professionals are often reminded that water management is a key part of their responsibilities. Despite water being such an essential resource on which we all depend, there is some level of confusion in the property industry about who is responsible for ensuring drinking water is safe in business and residential properties.

In this blog, we will outline the current legal status and detail what property professionals can do to make sure they fulfil all their water management responsibilities.

The legal framework

Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA) requires landlords to ensure that their tenants are not exposed to health and safety risks. The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH) provides a framework of actions to control the risk from a range of hazardous substances, including biological agents. This includes a requirement for landlords of both domestic and business premises to assess the risks of exposure to Legionella.

Although it is not a legal requirement to produce a Legionella water sample test certificate, a landlord may be liable to prosecution under HSWA if a tenant were to contract Legionnaires’ disease from the water system in their home. The landlord would then have to provide evidence to a court that they had fulfilled their legal responsibility.

Essentially, this means that a person in control of the premises is responsible for health and safety and needs to take the right precautions to reduce the risks of exposure to legionella.

High risk properties

The threat of the water system becoming contaminated with legionella is higher when water is allowed to stagnate. Therefore, high risk properties include those that have stood empty for any length of time such as student accommodation and commercial and residential properties which have been vacated and are still on the market waiting for new tenants.

Ensuring compliance

In order to ensure compliance with relevant legislation, we recommend property professionals and landlords follow the checklist below.

• Conduct site specific risk assessments

Risk assessments should be carried out to identify risks from legionella, E.coli, and other waterborne bacteria.  A thorough risk assessment will address the following questions:

• Are conditions right for the bacteria to multiply, for example, is the water temperature between 20 and 45 degrees centigrade?
• Is there rust or other debris in the system that could provide food for growing legionella?
• Are there areas where water is lying stagnant? For example, this might be in unused pipes
• Are there infrequently used water outlets such as showers and taps?
• Undertake hot and cold water monitoring and inspection

You should regularly check, clean and inspect your water system. Particular attention needs to be paid to the sentinel outlets (the outlets which are both closest and furthest from the mains water entry point or storage tank) and the temperature at which water is distributed should be monitored.

Water samples should be taken and analysed annually, or as defined during the risk assessment.

• Respond to any remedial works or bacteria threat quickly

The risk assessment will detail any work required to combat the bacteria threat. This may include system cleaning, disinfection, and chlorination, or the removal of dead legs on the system.

The majority of tank corrective remedial actions include tank replacements, provision and fitting of tank lids and lid vents, pipework isolation valves, re-direct return open vent pipework away from cold water storage tanks, fitting of insulation and pipework lagging, provision and fitting of rodent screens to the lid vent and the overflow pipework.

It is important to respond to any threat quickly

• Staff awareness training

Training of staff is important to ensure they can undertake basic tasks and log book completion. This will help you to identify and respond to any water safety threats quickly and effectively.

Brodex work with single sites, commercial property owners, management companies as well as housing authorities to assess their responsibilities relating to water and hygiene management.