The duty is the landlord’s. The agent’s job is to make sure a competent assessment exists for every managed property, to hold the record, and to have the management contract say who does what. HSE’s guidance says that last part in so many words.
Landlords “have a legal duty to ensure that the risk of exposure of tenants to legionella is properly assessed and controlled”, and appointing an agent does not move that duty. What HSE’s technical guidance adds, in HSG274 Part 2, is that where a managing or letting agent is used, the management contract should clearly specify who has responsibility for maintenance and safety checks, including legionella.
Most agency agreements are silent on it. That is where the trouble starts: the landlord assumes the agent has it covered, the agent assumes the landlord does, and nobody holds a record. One line in your terms of business settles it, and if the line says you arrange the assessment, you have a service to charge for.
All three lines are on HSE’s page on legionella and landlords’ responsibilities. Propertymark’s own fact sheet for members repeats them.
Someone from your office is already in every managed property: the inventory, the mid-term inspection, the check-out. The assessment is thirty minutes to an hour inside that visit. Your inspector answers the questions on a phone, takes a temperature at each outlet and a photograph beside each finding, and the AI checks the survey before they submit. Press submit and the assessment, a sheet for the tenant and the written scheme of control are produced, with your agency’s name on each and the inspector named as the assessor.
The record lands in the landlord’s file the way a gas record does: one file per landlord, every property, every date. Each recommendation carries a date and you are reminded before it falls due. Import the whole book from a spreadsheet in a minute. When the property database for the private rented sector opens later in 2026, this is the record you will be able to show.
£20 for one property including VAT; £16.80 each for 2 to 9 properties, £14.40 each for 10 to 24, and £12 each at 25 or more. Nobody drives anywhere, which is why it can be priced per property at all. The price list is on the pricing page; what an agency gets, and how the first one is set up, is on the page for letting agents.
Two complete assessments of fictional properties, produced by the same software every customer uses. Free, no account. Put one beside what your landlords are being handed now.
Related: Do landlords need a legionella risk assessment? · Do I need a legionella test for a rented property? · For letting agents
Set up the agency, add a property, and your inspector does the first one on a visit already in the diary.