Frequency of surveys
I have a commercial asbestos survey that dates back to 1999. It has been rigorously adhered to as far as on-going inspections are concerned, as a duty holder I inspect every year. The asbestos is absolutely minimal, 2 ceiling boards and some lagging in a roof void that I am the only person to ever enter and that is to inspect it. My question is - is my survey still okay to use if nothing has changed? My landlord seems to think I need a new one and wants to charge me over £600. I say I do not need one as it's the annual inspection that is the important bit. Am I right?
I believe you are correct. Assuming you are the only Duty Holder i.e. responsible for all repairs and maintenance, your responsibility is to manage the risk from ACMs, which you are doing by periodic re-inspections. So, provided you consider yourself competent to make the ongoing inspections and are happy with the standard of the original survey, you as Duty Holder can continue to carry out the re-inspections until such time as you refurbish the building or carry out alterations and require a more detailed demolition/refurbishment survey.
The only caveat to this is that the terms of your lease may enable the landlord to request compliance with statutory issues every so many years and he may be responsible for repairs and maintenance by way of a service charge or shared repairing liability. In which case the landlord could legitimately claim that they needed an up to date asbestos survey and the reasonable cost of this would form part of your service charge.
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