Column & Cantilever Tail Lifts
Column and cantilever units on rigid vehicles and trailers. Findings cluster in the ram seals and hydraulic creep, platform and hinge wear, and the condition of the platform locks.
Vehicle Tail Lifts — The MOT Does Not Cover This
Tail Lift Inspections in London
Independent LOLER thorough examination of vehicle tail lifts across London. A tail lift is lifting equipment in its own right, and it is the item operators most often believe is already covered — because it is bolted to a vehicle that has an MOT, a service schedule and an inspection regime of its own. None of those is a thorough examination under LOLER.
26+ Years Hands-On Engineering Experience
Independent of Maintenance Contracts
7 Days a Week, 6am to 6pm
Same-Day Reports, With Photos
Certificate expired or lift out of compliance? You're exposed to enforcement action, and your insurance may not respond, until it's resolved. What to do.
Written and reviewed by Mark Crowley, Director, Integrity Lift Compliance Ltd — 26+ years of hands-on lifting equipment engineering. NHS estates, commercial property and industrial lifting compliance.
Engineering Approach
What our tail lift inspection programme delivers
Independent, defensible statutory examination by an engineer with deep hands-on plant experience.
- The vehicle's MOT, safety inspection and service schedule are separate regimes and none of them is a LOLER thorough examination — a fleet can be entirely roadworthy and have no current examination on a single tail lift
- Twelve-monthly for a goods-only tail lift, six-monthly the moment it carries a person — which includes an operator riding the platform and any wheelchair or passenger lift on an accessible vehicle
- Examination carried out at your yard or operating centre, scheduled around the fleet rather than the diary, including early and late slots so vehicles are not taken off the road during the working day
- We sell no tail lifts, parts, hydraulics or repairs, so a defect we record is never a quotation in disguise
- Report of Thorough Examination with photographs, issued digitally the same day, identified against the vehicle registration and the lift's own serial number so the record survives a change of body or chassis
- Interval tracking across the fleet — we hold the next-due dates and make contact before they fall due, which matters more on tail lifts than on fixed plant because the equipment is never in the same place twice
What a tail lift inspection covers
A tail lift is examined where the vehicle is based, covering the platform, the lifting mechanism and the devices that stop it dropping:
- Platform: deck, folding sections, roll stops and edges
- Structure and mounting: lift arms, pivot pins, bushes and the mounting to the chassis
- Hydraulics: cylinders, hoses, pump and the valves that hold the platform
- Drift and holding: that a loaded platform does not creep down
- Controls: hand and foot controls, two-hand operation and isolation
- Safety devices: roll stops, handrails where fitted, and warning lights and flags
- Electrics: battery, wiring and the in-cab isolation switch
- Marking: rated capacity and the lift's own serial number
Worn pivot pins and bushes and hydraulic drift are where tail lifts most often fail.
What you get after the inspection
A Report of Thorough Examination with everything LOLER Schedule 1 requires — including the tail lift identified, the date examined, its safe working load, any defect with what must be done and by when, and the date the next examination is due — with each defect graded by severity. On top of that:
- Same-day report: issued digitally on the day of the inspection, not weeks later
- Photographs: of what was inspected and of any defect, in every report as standard
- Records and reminders: we keep the record on file and remind you before the next one falls due
If anything is not safe to use, you are told in writing before we leave. Because we sell no repairs, a defect on the report is never a quotation in disguise.
Assets We Examine
Asset classes covered under our tail lift inspection programme.
Tuck-Away & Slider Units
Tuck-under and sliding tail lifts where the stowed position and the deployment mechanism add failure modes a fixed platform does not have.
Wheelchair & Passenger Lifts
Platform lifts on accessible vehicles, minibuses and welfare transport. These carry people, so they sit on the six-monthly interval rather than the twelve-monthly one most fleet schedules assume.
Van & Light Commercial Tail Lifts
Smaller units on panel vans and 3.5-tonne chassis, often fitted after purchase and frequently absent from the compliance schedule altogether for that reason.
Bin Lifts & Refuse Vehicle Equipment
Bin lifting gear and refuse body lifting equipment, examined as lifting equipment in its own right alongside the vehicle's own inspection regime.
Trusted by Critical Estates
Independent. Defensible. Genuinely Endorsed.
SAFed-aligned defect classification, and the endorsement below is a genuine NHS Trust quote — not stock marketing copy.
NHS
NHS
Critical estate passenger lift compliance experience
SK
Skanska
Construction & engineering compliance support
A·B·C
SAFed-Aligned Defect Grading
Defects graded A, B or C to the published SAFed severity scale — a grading standard we follow, not a membership we hold
DBS
Enhanced DBS
Director Mark Crowley holds an enhanced DBS check
NHS Trust Endorsement
“Exceptional response times and thorough documentation. Managing compliance across multiple critical medical estates is complex, but their team makes statutory lift auditing seamless.”
Phillip Nai
Critical Healthcare Estates Manager
Barts Health NHS Trust
Areas We Cover
Independent tail lift inspections across London.
Common Questions
LOLER Inspection FAQs
Does a tail lift need a LOLER inspection?
Yes. A tail lift lifts a load, which makes it lifting equipment and brings it within LOLER regardless of the fact that it is mounted on a vehicle. The duty sits with whoever has control of the equipment, which in practice means the operator of the vehicle rather than whoever supplied or fitted the lift.
Doesn't the MOT or the safety inspection cover it?
No, and this is the assumption that leaves fleets exposed. The MOT, the operator's periodic safety inspection and the manufacturer's service schedule are separate regimes with separate purposes. A vehicle can pass every one of them and have no current Report of Thorough Examination for the tail lift bolted to the back of it. If you have never been issued a report specifically for the lift, you almost certainly do not have one.
How often does a tail lift need examining — six months or twelve?
Twelve months if it only ever lifts goods. Six months if it lifts a person, and that catches more fleets than operators expect: a wheelchair or passenger lift on an accessible vehicle is six-monthly, and so is any tail lift where the operator rides the platform rather than standing clear of it. If riding the platform is part of how the lift is used, the shorter interval applies.
How do you examine a lift on a vehicle that is never in the yard?
By scheduling around the fleet rather than around our diary. Examinations are carried out at your operating centre, with early, late and weekend slots so vehicles are not taken off the road during the working day. Where a fleet runs in shifts the practical answer is usually to examine in batches as vehicles come back in rather than to call them all off the road together.
What identifies the lift on the report?
The vehicle registration and the lift's own serial number, both. Registrations change, bodies get moved between chassis and vehicles get sold, so a report identified only by registration stops being traceable to the equipment it describes. Recording the serial number is what keeps a tail lift's examination history intact across the life of the fleet.
What usually fails on a tail lift?
Hydraulic creep and ram seal condition, wear in the platform, hinges and pivot pins, platform locks that no longer hold, and control gear — particularly dead-man and two-handed controls that have stopped requiring the operator's continuous input. Toe guards, platform edge protection and the warning markings are routinely missing or illegible on older units, and all of them form part of the examination.
How soon do I get the report?
The same day, with photographs, identified against the vehicle registration and the lift's own serial number.
Request a Survey
Tell us what needs inspecting and where. We'll reply within one business hour.
Already have an asset list or examination schedule? Email it to info@integrityliftcompliance.co.uk and we'll come back with a survey plan rather than ask you to retype it.
Survey Request Form
Further reading on tail lift inspections
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.
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.
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.
Prefer to talk to an engineer?
07496 873972