LOLER Regulations

The LOLER rules are a specific set of UK health and safety rules covering lifting equipment used at work. They came into force in 1998 and apply across England.

Scotland and Wales, sitting underneath the wider Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Lifts are one of the clearest examples of equipment the rules were written for.

Safety and UK rules

In plain terms, LOLER rules exist to make sure lifting equipment is strong enough, placed safely, properly marked, and checked regularly by a competent person. They do not just apply to passenger lifts.

Goods lifts, platform lifts, hoists and even some cranes and lifting parts fall under the same rules. If you manage a building with any kind of lift, these rules apply to you.

The rules are deliberately wide because lifting equipment varies so much. Rather than listing every type of lift, LOLER rules describe the outcomes duty holders must achieve.

Safe, well-maintained, properly examined equipment — and leave the detail of how to a competent person.

For a full walk-through of what a thorough examination under these rules looks like, see our LOLER thorough examinations guide.

LOLER rules place duties on employers, self-employed people, and anyone else with control over lifting equipment at work.

In a lift context this usually means the building owner, the employer occupying the premises, or a managing agent acting on the owner's behalf.

Costs and timescales

The person named as duty holder is the one legally accountable. Even if day-to-day tasks are delegated.

Landlords, freeholders and right-to-manage companies commonly find themselves as the duty holder for lifts in shared parts of a building.

Tenants with their own leased floors and their own lift may hold the duty for that equipment instead. Where responsibility sits is often set out in the lease.

So it is worth checking rather than assuming.

Because control, not ownership, is the test, a company that merely rents a floor with a lift it does not maintain can still be a duty holder in some plans.

Getting this wrong is a common cause of missed inspections. This we cover in more detail in our guide to landlord and tenant lift responsibilities.

LOLER rules set out several distinct duties. Lifting equipment must be strong and stable enough for its intended use.

Must be placed or installed so it minimises the risk of the load or the equipment itself striking a person. Every load and safe working load must be clearly marked.

Safety and UK rules

Lifting operations involving more than one piece of equipment, or more than one lift working together. Must be properly planned by a competent person, organised. Supervised so they are done safely.

This is more relevant to cranes and hoists on construction sites than to a typical passenger lift. However, the principle of proper group still applies to complex lift fittings and upgrade work works.

The best-known duty is thorough examination: lifting equipment must be examined by a competent person at legal intervals.

Costs and timescales

Usually six months for passenger-carrying lifts and twelve months for other lifting equipment — and after any exceptional circumstance likely to have affected its safety. A written report of thorough examination must follow.

Any defect that could cause danger must be reported without delay. Our LOLER inspection guide explains what happens during that examination step by step.

LOLER rules are often mentioned in the same breath as PUWER. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Both sit under the Health and Safety at Work etc.

Act, and both can apply to the same piece of equipment at the same time. PUWER covers work equipment in general.

This includes that it is suitable, well maintained and used only by trained people.

Safety and UK rules

LOLER rules add specific lifting-equipment needs on top of PUWER's general duties, especially around thorough examination and safe working loads. In practice, a lift owner needs to satisfy both sets of duties.

Though LOLER's thorough examination regime is usually the more visible obligation because it produces a dated, signed report.

Our guide on the difference between LOLER and PUWER sets the two apart in more detail. Our PUWER rules guide covers the wider equipment duties.

What it involves

Duty holders sometimes assume that a valid LOLER report means every legal box is ticked. It is a strong indicator of good practice, but PUWER duties around training.

Guarding and safe use continue independently and are worth reviewing alongside your maintenance contract.

LOLER rules are enforced by the Health and Safety Executive or, in some workplaces, the local authority.

Enforcement officers can inspect records, issue improvement notices requiring specific action by a deadline, or in serious cases issue prohibition notices stopping a lift being used at all.

Repeated or serious breaches, especially where someone is injured, can lead to prosecution. Courts have imposed large fines on duty holders who failed to arrange thorough examinations or ignored reported defects.

The reputational cost to a landlord or employer is often as damaging as any fine.

If you notice anything about about a lift — unusual noise, a door that does not close properly, a jerky ride.

The safest step is always to check what you can see safely, record it, and report it to a competent lift engineer. Never try to force doors or move a stuck lift car yourself.

Staying compliant with LOLER rules starts with knowing who your duty holder is and confirming, in writing. They is responsible for booking thorough examinations.

A written scheme of examination, agreed with your competent person, removes ambiguity about intervals and scope.

A good lift service contract should reference LOLER explicitly and clarify who arranges legal examinations versus routine maintenance. Keeping copies of every report of thorough examination, and acting promptly on any defect.

Is the clearest evidence of compliance if an enforcing authority ever asks.

Building managers who are still unsure whether their lift falls under LOLER, or who has the duty in a mixed-use building. Should speak to a qualified engineer.

Our find an engineer directory can help you find a competent person to review your plans.

An office landlord with a single eight-person lift serving five floors is the classic LOLER rules scenario:

• One duty holder
• One lift
• A six-monthly thorough examination written into the service contract
• Reports filed by the building teams

The main risk here is drift — a change of managing agent or a lease renewal can quietly leave nobody checking that examinations are still being booked.

Costs and timescales

In a housing blocks, the duty holder is often a freeholder or right-to-manage company acting through a managing agent. The cost of thorough examination is usually recovered through the service charge.

Leaseholders rarely see the LOLER report directly. So it is worth building a habit of asking the agent to confirm the lift's inspection status once a year, especially before a sale or refinance.

What it involves

Care homes carry extra weight because residents and staff may depend on the lift far more heavily than in a typical office. Any downtime has an immediate welfare impact.

LOLER rules do not set a different interval for care settings.

Safety and UK rules

However, many operators choose to pair the legal six-monthly examination with more frequent internal checks and a clear fallback plan for moving people safely if the lift is out of action.

Warehouses and distribution centres often mix passenger lifts with goods lifts and platform lifts on the same site, each possibly sitting under a different examination interval.

What to check and report

Getting this wrong — treating a goods lift as needing only annual checks when it also carries staff, for example.

Is a common compliance gap that a written scheme of examination is meant to prevent.

The most frequent mistake is assuming the maintenance contractor automatically handles LOLER compliance. Routine servicing keeps a lift running smoothly. However, the legal thorough examination is a separate.

Independent duty that someone still has to actively book and pay for. Even where the same firm does both.

A second mistake is losing track of duty holder status after a change of ownership, tenancy or upkeep company. LOLER rules attach to whoever has current control of the lift.

So every handover of a building should include an explicit conversation about who now owns this responsibility, not an assumption that it stays with the previous party.

A third is treating a clean report as the end of the conversation.

LOLER rules need action on any defect noted, but minor, and a duty holder who files a report without following up on its recommendations is still exposed if that defect later causes an incident.

A simple way to stay on top of LOLER rules is to keep a short running checklist:

• Confirm who the current duty holder is
• Confirm the examination interval agreed in the written scheme
• Confirm the date of the last report
• Confirm that any defects from that report have been closed out

New building managers inheriting a portfolio should ask for this details as a matter of routine during handover, alongside keys, alarm codes and utility contacts.

It takes minutes to ask for and can save weeks of chasing paperwork later if a question arises from an insurer or the Health and Safety Executive.

Where any of these four points cannot be answered confidently.

The safest next step is to contact a competent person and ask them to review the lift's status before relying on it further, rather than waiting for the next planned visit to raise it.

A written scheme of examination is the document that turns the general duties in LOLER rules into something specific to your lift.

It is drawn up by, or in advice with, a competent person and sets out exactly what must be examined, at what interval. Under what conditions an examination should happen sooner than planned.

Safety and UK rules

For a straightforward passenger lift, the scheme will usually confirm the standard six-monthly interval and list the main components to be checked each visit.

For more complex fittings — multiple lifts on one contract, or a mix of passenger and goods lifts on the same site. The scheme may set different intervals for different pieces of equipment.

This is why it should always be checked rather than assumed to be uniform.

Duty holders should keep a current copy of the written scheme alongside their maintenance contract and LOLER reports. If a lift is modified, relocated or has a big repair done.

It is worth asking the competent person whether the scheme still applies as written or needs reviewing.

A newly installed lift does not escape LOLER rules simply. Because it also carries CE or UKCA marking from fitting. Once the lift is in use.

It falls under the same thorough examination duty as any existing lift. The first legal examination should be built into the handover from the installer.

Upgrade work projects — replacing a control system, ropes or door gear on an existing lift. Count as the kind of exceptional circumstance that can justify an examination outside the normal schedule.

Especially if the work could affect safety-critical components. Building managers start-up testing upgrade work work should ask the contractor directly whether a fresh thorough examination is recommended once the work is complete.

Getting this right at the point of fitting or major works avoids a gap in the compliance record later.

It is far easier to arrange while the installing or modernising contractor is still on site than to reconstruct after the fact.

Many engineering insurance policies for lifts need evidence that LOLER rules are being met. Some insurers employ their own competent persons to do the thorough examination as part of the cover.

This is why the phrase "insurance inspection" is so often used interchangeably with a LOLER inspection.

A lapsed or overdue examination can affect an insurance claim if a lift-related incident occurs during the gap. Since insurers may ask to see the compliance history as a condition of paying out.

Keeping examinations current is so not just a legal matter but a practical one for protecting cover.

Building managers renewing insurance policies should treat the ask for for LOLER records as routine rather than an inconvenience.

Should raise any overdue or upcoming examinations with the insurer proactively rather than waiting to be asked.