LOLER Knowledge Base
Practical, engineering-led articles on LOLER 1998, thorough examinations and duty-holder obligations — written for FM, estates and operations teams.
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What LOLER and a thorough examination actually are, how the regulations fit together, and what the terms mean.
What is LOLER?
LOLER is the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. It applies across Great Britain to lifting equipment used at work, and requires that equipment to be strong and stable enough for the job, properly installed and marked, used in planned lifting operations, and thoroughly examined by a competent person at set intervals: every six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, and every twelve months for everything else, unless a written examination scheme sets different ones.
What Is a LOLER Inspection?
A LOLER inspection — properly a thorough examination — is a systematic engineering assessment of lifting equipment by a competent person, to establish whether it is safe to remain in service. It is not a visual walk-round and it is not a service visit. This is what one actually involves.
LOLER vs PUWER
PUWER covers all work equipment and sets the general duties: suitable, maintained, inspected where it can deteriorate, guarded and used by trained people. LOLER adds specific duties for equipment that lifts, including a thorough examination at fixed intervals with a prescribed written report. Lifting equipment is covered by both; other work equipment comes under PUWER but not LOLER.
UK Lift Compliance: The Complete Legal Framework
Lift compliance in the UK isn't governed by a single regulation. Safety in use comes from LOLER 1998 and PUWER 1998, access from the Equality Act 2010, and the BS EN 81-20/81-50 standards set the design baseline new lifts are built to — four frameworks that do different jobs and are easily confused.
LOLER 1998 Regulation by Regulation
Almost every conversation about LOLER is a conversation about Regulation 9 — the thorough examination — because that is the bit somebody sells you. It is one of eight duties that actually apply to you, and it is not the one most prosecutions turn on. This sets out what each regulation requires and where people come unstuck.
Which Standards and Regulations Apply to Your Lift?
Lift compliance is split between two very different things that get muddled constantly: the law that applies when a lift is supplied, and the law that applies while it is in use. Standards sit alongside both without usually being law themselves. Knowing which is which decides who is responsible for what.
UK Lift & Lifting Equipment Compliance Glossary
The recurring terms in UK lift and lifting-equipment compliance, defined in plain English — useful whether you're reading a Report of Thorough Examination for the first time or just want to know what your inspector is talking about.
How often
The six- and twelve-month intervals, how they apply to specific equipment, and when a written scheme replaces them.
How Often Are LOLER Inspections Required?
Six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, twelve months for everything else, or in line with a written examination scheme drawn up by a competent person. That is the whole rule. What catches duty-holders out is rarely the interval itself — it is when the clock starts, what resets it, and the examinations that fall outside the cycle altogether.
How Often Does a Passenger Lift Need Inspecting?
Every six months. The confusion is almost never about the number — it is about whether the maintenance visits already cover it. They do not. A service contract and a thorough examination are different things done by different people for different reasons, and having one does not satisfy the duty for the other.
How Often Does a Forklift Need a Thorough Examination?
Twelve months, for a forklift lifting goods. Six months the moment it lifts a person, which includes any use of a man-basket or work platform attachment. The interval is the easy part; what catches operators out is that fitting an attachment can change both the answer and the truck's rated capacity.
How Often Does a MEWP Need a LOLER Inspection?
Every six months. The twelve-month default never applies to a mobile elevating work platform, because it exists to lift a person — and unlike a forklift, that is not a configuration it can be taken out of. Use does not change the interval; what varies is how hard the machine has been worked between examinations.
How Often Does a Crane Need a Thorough Examination?
Twelve months where the crane lifts loads, six where it lifts people. But with cranes the calendar is rarely what catches people out — it is Regulation 9's other trigger, which requires examination after installation and after assembly at each new site, and which a monthly diary reminder will never prompt.
Do Slings and Chains Need Examining as Often as the Lift?
Lifting accessories are examined every six months, not every twelve. That surprises people, because accessories do not lift persons and the six-monthly limb is usually explained as the one for passenger-carrying plant. Accessories are on it in their own right, and they are the items most often missed entirely.
How Often Do Harnesses and Lanyards Need Inspecting?
A fall arrest harness or lanyard needs three levels of checking: a pre-use check by the wearer every time, interim inspections where the work is hard on the kit, and a detailed inspection by a competent person at least every six months. HSE's guidance shortens that to three months for equipment used frequently in arduous conditions. LOLER is usually not the regulation that applies, which is why the intervals are often misunderstood.
Does LOLER Apply to Rope Access Equipment?
Yes. Rope access equipment is used to raise, lower and hold people at height, so LOLER treats it as lifting equipment for lifting persons and requires a thorough examination by a competent person at least every six months. That sits on top of the technician's pre-use check and any interim inspections the work demands.
What Is a Written Scheme of Examination?
Regulation 9 gives two routes: fixed intervals of six or twelve months, or examination in accordance with a scheme drawn up by a competent person. The second route is widely misunderstood as a way to examine less often. It is not — it is a way to examine at the right frequency for how the equipment is actually used, which can mean more often.
Overdue, second-hand and grey areas
What happens when the date passes, whether equipment can still be used, and the cases people are unsure about.
What Happens If LOLER Expires?
The plant is no longer legally usable, and the cost of a lapse is rarely the examination you did not book. Quarantine the equipment, arrange a thorough examination promptly, and document the steps taken — then resume once a competent person has examined the plant and signed it off.
Can Equipment Be Used Without LOLER?
No. Lifting equipment that falls within LOLER must be thoroughly examined before first use where required and then at the set intervals. Once an examination date has passed there is no current evidence the equipment is safe, there is no grace period, and it should be taken out of use until it has been examined.
Does Second-Hand Lifting Equipment Need Examining?
It depends on what comes with it. Used equipment bought from another business can go into service on its existing examination if it arrives with physical evidence that its last thorough examination was carried out, and its safety does not depend on how it is installed. Without that evidence, as with many auction lots and private sales, it needs a thorough examination before it does any work. Many buyers have one done anyway, because the seller's report describes the machine before it was moved.
Does LOLER Apply to a Stairlift in a Private Home?
For most householders the answer is no, and nobody tells them so. LOLER covers lifting equipment provided for use at work. A stairlift a homeowner installed and uses themselves is not work equipment. The moment someone's employee relies on it to do their job, the position changes.
Who is responsible and who can examine
Who holds the duty, how it splits between landlord, tenant and hirer, and who is competent and independent enough to carry out the examination.
Who Is the LOLER Duty-Holder?
Everyone in the industry says duty-holder, including us. The regulations do not use the term at all. What LOLER actually does is place duties on employers, on the self-employed, and on anyone who has control of lifting equipment — to the extent of their control. That phrase is where most of the confusion lives.
LOLER Responsibility: Landlord or Tenant?
LOLER responsibility follows control of the equipment, not ownership of the building. In practice, the freeholder or managing agent is usually the duty-holder for lifts in shared areas, while a tenant can become the duty-holder for lifting equipment they operate exclusively within their own unit.
Who Examines Hired or Leased Lifting Equipment?
The common assumption is that hired plant is the hire company's problem. It is partly theirs and partly yours, and the part that is yours is the part that gets missed. LOLER places duties on whoever has control of the equipment, which on a hire site includes you.
Who Can Carry Out LOLER Inspections?
A competent person: someone with the practical and theoretical knowledge to find defects in that class of equipment and judge how much they matter, and who is independent enough to say so. LOLER names no qualification, no register and no licence, which puts the burden of judging competence on the duty-holder appointing them.
Can My Lift Company Carry Out the LOLER Inspection?
It is one of the most common questions duty-holders ask, and the honest answer is not a flat no. LOLER does not name a prohibited person. What it requires is a competent person, and HSE expects that person to be sufficiently independent and impartial to make objective decisions — which is where a maintenance provider examining its own work runs into difficulty. This is about the structure of the arrangement, not about anyone's honesty.
Does My Insurer Carry Out the LOLER Inspection?
Sometimes, and sometimes not — which is why this is the assumption that catches duty-holders out most often. Engineering insurance in the UK has long been sold alongside engineer surveying, so a great many businesses do receive statutory thorough examinations arranged through their insurer, and those examinations are usually perfectly sound. The problem is that nothing makes it automatic. Being insured is not the same as having a current Report of Thorough Examination, and the only way to know which you have is to look at the document.
Is There a LOLER Licence?
No. There is no LOLER licence, and the law requires no certificate of competence, no card and no listing on any government register of approved examiners. LOLER requires a competent person and does not define the term, which is why the question is so hard to get a straight answer to — and why asking to see somebody's licence is the wrong question. Here is the one worth asking instead.
The examination, reports and records
What happens on the day, what gets checked, what you are left holding afterwards and how long to keep it.
What to Expect During Your LOLER Inspection Visit
A walk-through of what actually happens when the engineer arrives to carry out a LOLER thorough examination — access requirements, what gets checked, and what you receive afterwards. In practice it's similar to an MOT for your equipment: no repairs happen on the day, just an independent assessment of what needs attention.
Will the Examiner Leave My Lift Out of Service?
It is the question duty-holders ask least often and worry about most, and it is the real reason many let their maintenance contractor examine its own work. A thorough examination takes the lift out of normal service deliberately — that is what testing the safety gear means. Getting it back is specific to the installation in front of you rather than to the name on the doors.
What Gets Checked on a BMU Cradle Thorough Examination?
A building maintenance unit is the roof-mounted machine that lowers a cradle down a façade so windows can be cleaned or panels replaced. It carries people over a long drop, which puts it on the six-monthly interval and makes it one of the least forgiving pieces of plant on any building.
Lift Emergency Alarms and Entrapment
Entrapment is the lift failure a duty-holder is most likely to meet in person, and the alarm is the one safety device that only matters when everything else has already failed. It is also the device most often found not working — not because it broke, but because the line behind it changed and nobody tested it.
LOLER Certificate: What People Mean and What You Actually Get
Almost everyone calls it a LOLER certificate. LOLER 1998 never calls it that — the document is a Report of Thorough Examination. The distinction matters, because a 'certificate' implies a pass and a report does not.
Reporting, Records and the Duties Around a Thorough Examination
The examination is one duty. Three others sit around it and are routinely confused with it: what the report must legally contain, who has to report a failure onwards and to whom, and which other regulations govern the equipment once it is in use. Getting the first wrong means you cannot tell whether the examination was properly done. Getting the second wrong is an offence in itself.
LOLER Record Keeping: How Long to Keep Your Reports
LOLER 1998 Regulation 11 requires duty-holders to keep records of every Thorough Examination. As a working rule: keep reports for lifting equipment for as long as it stays in service, and for lifting accessories for at least two years.
How Much Does a LOLER Inspection Cost?
There's no single fixed price for a LOLER inspection — cost depends on equipment type, how many items are examined together, and site access. Here's what actually drives the figure, and how to get an accurate quote for your own equipment.
PUWER
The wider work equipment regulations that sit alongside LOLER, and what they require between examinations.
What Is PUWER?
PUWER is the set of UK laws that keeps people safe when they use machinery and tools at work. It covers everything from a hand tool to a factory machine or a vehicle, and it says equipment must be right for the job, kept in safe working order, checked regularly, and used only by people trained to use it. The formal name is the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
How Often Are PUWER Inspections Required?
PUWER does not set a fixed interval like LOLER's six or twelve months. It requires an inspection where equipment's safety depends on how it is installed, and at suitable intervals where it is exposed to conditions that could cause dangerous deterioration. The interval is set by risk assessment, the result must be recorded, and power presses are the one exception with fixed statutory intervals.
PUWER Risk Assessment & Maintenance Duties
PUWER 1998 requires work equipment to be suitable for the risks it presents, kept properly maintained and used only by trained operators, and the Management Regulations require those risks to be assessed — obligations that continue even where LOLER's periodic examination has just been completed.
PUWER 1998 Regulation by Regulation
PUWER is broader than LOLER and much less discussed, because almost nobody sells a PUWER inspection the way they sell a thorough examination. It applies to every piece of work equipment you have, it sets no fixed interval for most of it, and it is where guarding, training and isolation duties actually live.