Who Is Responsible for Lift Compliance? Property Owner Guide

This catches many property owners off guard. The service contract covers the maintenance work. It does not transfer the duty of care. Under UK regulations, the building owner — or the organisation with control of the equipment — remains the duty holder. That accountability stays with you whether or not you have visibility into what is actually happening inside your lifts.

This guide sets out who carries responsibility under UK law, what that responsibility actually requires, and how to demonstrate compliance independently of your service provider.

What lift compliance in the UK actually means

Lift compliance is governed by a small number of clear regulations.

The Lifts Regulations 1997 govern the safety and design of new lift installations. The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER) require a thorough examination of every passenger lift at least every six months by a competent person. The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) cover ongoing safe use and maintenance. EN 81-28 sets the requirement for two-way emergency voice communication — including the verified three-day test call that confirms the system is working.

These are not optional. They apply to every passenger lift in a workplace or a building used by the public. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) enforces them.

Who is responsible for lift compliance in a building?

The building owner is responsible for lift compliance in a building. This is the position under UK law whether the lift is in a commercial property, a residential block, or a mixed-use development.

The exact title varies — freeholder, managing agent, responsible person, duty holder — but the legal substance is consistent. The person or organisation with control of the lift is accountable for ensuring it meets every applicable regulation. The lift service company carries out the work. The building owner carries the responsibility.

This matters most at the point of an incident. A failed inspection, an entrapment, an HSE notice — the duty holder is the first party answerable.

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Where the burden of proof actually sits

If something goes wrong, the question is not whether the service company turned up. The question is whether you can demonstrate that the lift was maintained, tested, and verifiably operational at every relevant point.

In a routine year, that proof comes from service reports. In an incident, those same reports — written by the party doing the work — face scrutiny. Independent, time-stamped data carries more weight than a contractor's account of their own visit.

This is the gap most building owners discover too late.

Three questions every property owner should be able to answer

1. When did the emergency telephone last complete a successful three-day test call? EN 81-28 requires this every 72 hours. The record should be automatic and time-stamped.
2. What was the longest period of unplanned downtime on any of your lifts in the past 90 days? Service reports rarely show this clearly. Continuous monitoring does.
3. Could you produce a complete maintenance log — every visit, every action, every date — within 24 hours of an HSE request? If the answer is "we would have to ask the contractor", you do not own the record.

If any of these answers are uncertain, the gap is not in your contractor's work. It is in your ability to see it.

How independent visibility changes the position

SafeLine Orion gives property owners a real-time view of every lift across their portfolio. It works with all lift brands and all ages, through SafeLine hardware on the lift car roof and emergency communication unit. It is browser-based — no software to install.

Three things change when monitoring is independent:

• The data belongs to you, not your contractor. Orion stores faults, alerts, maintenance activity, and compliance records under your account. If you change service provider, the data stays.
• EN 81-28 three-day test calls are automated and logged. Every test, every result, time-stamped in the Orion Cloud. Free for SafeLine SIM users.
• Fault alerts arrive in real time. You hear about a problem before your tenants do — not from a service report written days later.

Orion does not connect to the lift's core control system. There is zero cybersecurity risk to the lift itself. The platform is NIS2 and GDPR compliant.

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What this looks like in practice

A facilities manager opens Orion on a Monday morning. Two lifts in the portfolio show fault alerts from over the weekend. One has been resolved remotely by the service provider; the platform shows the action and time-stamp. The other is still open — and the FM has a verified record of when it was reported, what was reported, and how long it has been outstanding.

The same view shows every successful EN 81-28 test call from the past 30 days, logged automatically. No manual collection. No reliance on a service report.

This is what shifting the burden of proof looks like. Not more reporting — better records, generated by the system itself.

Read how Lift Service Totaal uses SafeLine Orion →

What to do next

If you are not certain whether your current setup meets EN 81-28 — or whether you could prove it within 24 hours — start by reviewing your three-day test call records.

If they are missing, incomplete, or live only inside your contractor's system, the right next step is independent monitoring.

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