Does Second-Hand Lifting Equipment Need Examining?

What does LOLER require before used equipment goes into service?

Regulation 9 requires a thorough examination before lifting equipment is first put into service by you, with two exceptions. The first is equipment that has never been used and comes with a declaration of conformity made within the last twelve months. The second is equipment obtained from another business that is accompanied by physical evidence that its last thorough examination has been carried out, which in practice means its current Report of Thorough Examination. Second-hand plant can only use the second route. If the evidence is missing, out of date or cannot be matched to the machine, it needs examining before it does any work.

The previous owner had it examined three months ago. Isn't that enough?

Legally it can be. If the report comes with the machine, matches its serial number and is still in date, it is the physical evidence Regulation 9 asks for, and the next examination is due when that report says. Whether it is enough in practice is a judgement. The report describes the machine as it was for the previous owner, before it was taken out of service, loaded, transported and set down somewhere else. If anything happened on the way that could affect its safety, that is an exceptional circumstance and calls for an examination before use. If you have any doubt about the machine or the paperwork, have it examined.

What should you ask a seller for?

Four things, and the answers tell you a great deal about what you are buying:

1. The most recent Report of Thorough Examination, not a certificate — the report names the defects and the timescales, which is the part a seller has least interest in showing you.
2. The examination history rather than the last one alone. A single clean report tells you nothing about a machine that has been condemned and repaired twice.
3. The serial number and date of manufacture, so what arrives can be checked against what was described.
4. Any written scheme of examination, and the manufacturer's documentation if it still exists — on older plant it usually does not, and that is worth knowing before you buy rather than after.

What about equipment bought at auction?

Assume there is no usable history and budget for an examination before the machine earns anything. Auction lots are frequently sold with no report, no manual, no serial-plate legibility and no account of why the previous owner disposed of them. None of that makes the purchase unwise — plenty of sound plant is sold that way — but it does mean the first examination is doing the work a vendor's report would otherwise have done, and it is better to find a condemning defect before the machine is in production than after.

Does the seller have any duty?

A business selling work equipment does, and a private seller largely does not. Where equipment is supplied in the course of a business there are duties around its safety and around the information supplied with it, which is why a dealer should be able to produce paperwork and an individual selling a single machine often cannot. In practice the distinction matters less than it looks: whatever the seller's position, it is your duty to make sure the equipment either arrives with evidence of a current examination or is examined before you use it, and that duty cannot be bought out of.

Does it need examining again once it is installed?

If safety depends on how it was installed, yes — and that is a separate trigger from the purchase itself. Equipment assembled or installed at a new site is examined before it goes into service because the installation is part of what makes it safe, which catches hoists, runway systems, overhead gear and anything bolted to a structure. A machine that is simply driven off a lorry and used, such as a forklift, does not raise the installation question; it needs examining before use only if it arrives without evidence of a current examination.

What does this cost you if you skip it?

The same exposure as any other missing examination. If a second-hand machine arrives with no evidence of a current examination, is put to work anyway and then fails, the question of how you satisfied yourself it was safe has no good answer. It is also why first examinations on used plant tend to find more than routine ones do: nobody has looked at that machine with your interests in mind before.