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FAQS · HEALTH & LEGISLATION
What is the duty to manage asbestos (Regulation 4)?.
Regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 places a legal duty to manage asbestos on whoever is responsible for maintenance and repair of non-domestic premises — the owner, landlord, managing agent or occupying business, depending on the lease. It also covers the common parts of residential blocks and HMOs.
If you control a pre-2000 commercial building and cannot produce an asbestos register, you are the person this regulation is about.
Written by the Innov8 UK Group asbestos team · Technically reviewed by our Contracts Director · Last reviewed July 2026
DUTY
What the duty requires
The dutyholder must find out whether asbestos is present (or presume it is), record its location and condition in an asbestos register, assess the risk, and prepare and maintain a management plan setting out how the risk will be controlled. Crucially, the information must reach anyone liable to disturb it — maintenance staff, contractors, utility engineers — before they work.
The register and management plan
A compliant register comes from a management survey and lists each material, location, condition and risk score. The management plan says who is responsible, how materials are labelled and monitored, the re-inspection schedule (typically annual), and the emergency procedure if something is disturbed. It is a live document, not a PDF that gathers dust.
What non-compliance costs
The HSE prosecutes dutyholders who expose workers through missing or ignored registers — fines regularly reach six figures, and directors can be personally liable. The commercial consequences bite too: sales, lettings and insurance renewals increasingly stall without asbestos documentation.
Getting compliant
The route is straightforward: management survey, register, plan, annual re-inspection. We provide all four, and can bring neglected buildings up to standard quickly — including re-inspections of registers other firms produced.
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