landlord responsability

[Desotuatail]

Hi. I am after some information about landlords. If a landlord has to do a repair on a tenanted property, I believe the engineer has to have some kind of insurance or paperwork to confirm that they are allowed to do the work. As the occupants are not employing the workman. It is up to the landlord to vet the engineer. Any bad workmanship can leave the tenant in harms way. Can anyone share some light on this as I think the landlord is in some sort of legal violation.

Thanks.

[atticus]

Certain works eg gas and electricity must be carried out by tradespeople with appropriate qualifications.

[Desotuatail]

No you have to have extra clearance to be able to work on places that are not owned. I.e. Tenented.

[atticus]

Are you sure?

[islandgirl]

I agree with Atticus (as a former LL) - you have to employ gas safe registered gas engineers for example. No other requirements I know of.

[des8]

Hmm,.... I'm neither Landlord nor Tenant but would have thought the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 puts a duty of care to ensure the safety of any person in a rented property whilst being worked on.
That duty of care will extend to ensuring any contractors are competent to carry out the work

Now it might not be a legal requirement that the landlord carries appropriate liability insurance (as suggested in post1) but it would certainly be advisable and is usually included in Landlord Insurances

That might be to what the OP was referring

[islandgirl]

The LL should ensure the contractor has liability insurance - that is what is required. We insured the building (as the LL) but did not have LL insurance of the kind that paid rent if the tenants did not.

[des8]

But did you carry liability Insurance in case you failed (not that you would ) in your duty of care to ensure the safety of any person in your property?

[islandgirl]

But did you carry liability Insurance in case you failed (not that you would ) in your duty of care to ensure the safety of any person in your property?

We had insurance that noted it was a rental property and covered us for liability to tenants. We did not however have to make any specific checks on workmen other than those which any responsible householder would make (check the gassafe register etc and that they were insured). If a workman caused a problem for a tenant it would be for their insurance to cover it!