Guidance · Reviewed October 2026
Who holds the duty to manage, what an asbestos register must contain, where asbestos is most often found, and what to do if you disturb it.
The short answer
Asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999, but it remains in any building constructed or refurbished before 2000. If you are responsible for maintenance or repair of non-domestic premises, regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 requires you to find out whether asbestos is present, record it, assess the risk, and manage it. HSE describes asbestos as the greatest cause of work-related deaths in Great Britain.
Why It Still Matters
Around 5,000 people a year still die in Great Britain from asbestos-related disease, more than from any other cause of work-related death.
The reason the figure has not fallen, despite a ban more than a quarter of a century old, is the delay between exposure and disease. HSE says it can take anywhere between 15 and 60 years for symptoms to develop, so today’s deaths reflect exposures from decades ago, and exposures happening now may not show for decades to come.
Which is why this is not only a historical problem. HSE says asbestos is known to kill around 20 tradespeople each week due to past exposure. The people most at risk today are not asbestos removers: they are electricians, plumbers, joiners and maintenance staff working in buildings that have never been surveyed.
Mesothelioma
Cancer of the lining of the lungs or the lining around the lower digestive tract. HSE says it is almost exclusively caused by asbestos and is always fatal.
Asbestos-related lung cancer
Looks the same as lung cancer from smoking and other causes. HSE says people who smoke and are exposed to asbestos are at a much greater risk.
Asbestosis
A serious scarring of the lung, normally after heavy exposure over many years. It can be very debilitating.
Pleural thickening
Thickening of the lining of the lung, which can restrict lung expansion and cause breathlessness.
HSE is actively inspecting this
In January 2024 HSE launched Asbestos – Your Duty, a campaign to improve understanding of the legal duty to manage asbestos. Since then its inspectors have assessed how asbestos is managed in schools, hospitals and council buildings, and in 2026 HSE confirmed its inspectors are checking asbestos management. If you hold the duty and have never documented it, now is the time to put that right.
Who Holds the Duty to Manage?
Regulation 4 places the duty on whoever is responsible for the maintenance and repair of non-domestic premises. In practice that means:
- Owners and occupiers of commercial premises, such as shops, offices, industrial units and warehouses
- Landlords, or tenants, depending on what the lease says about repair
- Managing agents and facilities managers
- Anyone with a contractual obligation for maintenance
- Those responsible for the common parts of multi-occupancy domestic buildings, such as stairwells, corridors, plant rooms and roof spaces
Where a lease is silent or ambiguous, the duty falls on whoever has control of the premises in practice. It can be shared, and where it is, duty holders must cooperate. What it cannot be is assumed away: “the landlord deals with that” is not a position regulation 4 recognises unless the lease says so.
The Pre-2000 Test
The ban came in stages. The importation of blue asbestos (crocidolite) and brown asbestos (amosite) was banned in 1985, and the ban was extended to white asbestos (chrysotile) in 1999, with its supply and use prohibited from 24 November 1999. All forms of asbestos can cause cancer. Blue and brown are considered more hazardous than white, but that does not make white safe.
The practical test is therefore whether the building was constructed or refurbished before 2000. If it was, HSE advises assuming asbestos is present until a survey shows otherwise.
One point that catches people out: the ban prohibited new installation and trading. It never required existing asbestos to be removed. Everything installed before those dates is still there unless somebody has taken it out, which is the entire reason regulation 4 exists.
Two points worth knowing. Asbestos was most widely used in buildings between 1950 and 1980. And for buildings built after 2000, HSE says there is unlikely to be any asbestos, but you should still think about any old industrial machinery or equipment on the premises.
Where Asbestos Is Found
It was used in thousands of products, and rarely looks like anything in particular. These are the materials most often encountered, roughly in order of how dangerous they are when disturbed.
| Material | Where you’ll meet it |
|---|---|
| Sprayed coatings and lagging | Pipe and boiler insulation, structural steel fire protection, plant rooms. The highest-risk materials, and licensed work. |
| Asbestos insulating board (AIB) | Ceiling tiles, partition walls, soffits, panels behind heaters, fire doors, service duct linings. Extremely common and easily damaged. |
| Textured coatings | Decorative ceiling and wall finishes. Low risk when intact, but sanding or drilling releases fibres. |
| Asbestos cement | Corrugated roof and wall sheets, gutters, downpipes, flue pipes, water tanks. Cement roof sheets are also the classic fragile surface, so they kill by falls as well as by fibres. See working at height. |
| Floor materials | Vinyl and thermoplastic floor tiles, and the bitumen adhesive underneath them. |
| Miscellaneous | Rope seals, gaskets, textiles, fuse boxes, toilet cisterns, window putty, roofing felt, and older plant and machinery still in service. |
It cannot reliably be identified by eye, because it is usually mixed with other materials. Where there is doubt, either presume it is asbestos and manage it as such, or have it sampled and analysed by a UKAS-accredited laboratory.
The Asbestos Register
The register is the record at the centre of the duty. It answers four questions: what is there, where is it, what condition is it in, and who needs to know?
The register records
Every known or presumed asbestos-containing material: its type, exactly where it is, how much there is and its condition, the dates of the original and latest inspection, and a material assessment of its potential to release fibres. Areas a surveyor could not access are recorded as presumed to contain asbestos.
The management plan sets out
Who is responsible for managing asbestos, including deputies; the register and site plan; the schedule for monitoring condition; how the register is shared with workers and contractors; the controls that stop materials being disturbed; and emergency procedures if they are.
HSE says the register should be updated at least once a year, and the management plan reviewed every 12 months or sooner if anything changes. Give both a review date, a named owner and evidence that condition checks actually happened.
The information has to reach people. Anyone liable to disturb the fabric of the building must be told before they start: maintenance staff, electricians, plumbers, IT cabling contractors, cleaners drilling a bracket into a wall. The common exposure risk is not demolition; it is someone doing a small job in a ceiling void nobody warned them about.
Free asbestos register and management plan tool
Build a register and management plan for your premises, covering location, type, condition, risk rating and planned action for each item, with a printable record. Free, no account needed. It sits on envicourse.com, our course marketplace, and opens in a new tab.
Surveys
Two types, and they are not interchangeable. Our asbestos survey guide covers both in detail, including who should carry them out.
A management survey is the standard one, carried out to locate materials that could be damaged or disturbed during normal occupation and maintenance. It involves minor intrusion and sampling.
A refurbishment and demolition survey is required before any work that will disturb the fabric. It is fully intrusive, destructive where necessary, and the area must be vacated. Commissioning a management survey and treating it as clearance for refurbishment is a serious and common mistake: the survey was never designed to find what is inside the walls. If you manage several buildings or are planning major work, an asbestos consultant can arrange the right survey and oversee what follows.
If You Disturb Asbestos
HSE’s advice is to stop work immediately, keep everyone else out of the area and put up a warning sign saying “Possible asbestos contamination”. Do not try to clear it up yourself, and follow HSE’s decontamination steps for any contaminated clothing rather than walking it through the building.
Report it to the person in charge as soon as possible. Then either arrange for a sample to be analysed or presume it contains the worst type of asbestos and apply the right controls, record who may have been exposed, and update the asbestos management plan. If the material needs removing, see asbestos removal. HSE says exposure is reportable under RIDDOR as a dangerous occurrence when a work activity causes the accidental release of asbestos fibres into the air in a quantity sufficient to cause damage to health.
Training
Anyone whose work could foreseeably disturb asbestos needs asbestos awareness training. Anyone carrying out non-licensed or licensed work needs more than that, and duty holders need training aimed at the management duty rather than the hands-on work.
The categories, the training tiers, medical requirements and refresher intervals are all set out on our asbestos training courses page, which covers which level applies to which kind of work.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was asbestos banned in the UK?
1999, when the ban was extended to white asbestos, with its supply and use prohibited from 24 November 1999. The importation of blue and brown asbestos had already been banned in 1985. The practical consequence is that any building constructed or refurbished before 2000 may contain it.
Do I need an asbestos register?
If you hold the duty to manage under regulation 4, you must keep an up-to-date record of the location and condition of asbestos-containing materials, or of materials presumed to contain asbestos. That record is what people mean by an asbestos register. It must be kept current and made available to anyone liable to disturb the material.
Does the duty apply to domestic properties?
Not to the inside of a private home, but it does apply to the common parts of multi-occupancy domestic buildings, such as stairwells, corridors, lift shafts, plant rooms and roof spaces. Landlords and managing agents of blocks of flats hold the duty for those areas.
Does asbestos always have to be removed?
No, and removal is often the worse option. The 1985 and 1999 bans stopped new supply and use; they never required existing material to be taken out. HSE says asbestos in good condition that is not likely to be damaged should be left in place and monitored. Removal disturbs it by definition and creates the exposure risk the duty exists to prevent. Manage it, and remove it when its condition or planned work makes that the right call. See asbestos removal.
What’s the difference between a management survey and a refurbishment survey?
A management survey supports day-to-day occupation and maintenance, involving minor intrusion. A refurbishment and demolition survey is fully intrusive and required before any work that will disturb the fabric of the building. Using a management survey to clear refurbishment work is a common and serious error, because it was never designed to find what is behind the walls.
Can I identify asbestos myself?
No. It is usually mixed with other materials and cannot be reliably identified by eye. Where there is doubt, either presume the material contains asbestos and manage it accordingly, or have a sample taken and analysed by a UKAS-accredited laboratory. Presuming is the safe default; guessing is not.
Related Guidance
General guidance only, reviewed against HSE guidance and the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 in October 2026. This does not replace a survey by a competent person. Envico is an independent training intermediary and is not affiliated with the HSE.