Passenger and Goods Lifts Inspections

A commercial passenger lift is one of the most heavily-used pieces of work equipment in any building. Tens of thousands of cycles per year, decade after decade, carrying members of the public who have no involvement in its maintenance and no way of assessing its safety. That's why LOLER places passenger lifts at the strictest end of the inspection regime: a statutory thorough examination every 6 months, by an independent competent person, with a written report retained for HSE inspection.

We provide lift inspections across Kent, London, Essex and throughout the UK through our network of qualified Engineer Surveyors operating independently of lift maintenance providers.

Lift Types Under LOLER

"Lift" under LOLER is a wide category. We examine the full range of vertical-transport equipment found in commercial, residential, and public-sector buildings:

• Passenger lifts — traction or hydraulic, in offices, residential blocks, retail, healthcare, and hospitality. Also sometimes called disabled lifts or hospital lifts depending on context, and goods lifts where the same equipment is operated for goods carriage.
• Goods lifts — including loading-bay lifts and inter-floor freight lifts (no passengers permitted).
• Service lifts, dumbwaiters, and kitchen lifts — smaller goods-only lifts in restaurants, hotels, libraries, and commercial kitchens. Kitchen lifts (also called dumbwaiters in hospitality contexts) follow the goods-only 12-monthly interval.
• Platform lifts — short-travel accessibility lifts (typically less than 3 metres of travel).
• Stairlifts — domestic and commercial chair lifts following a staircase line. Stairlifts are LOLER-scope wherever they're used in a workplace or workplace-adjacent setting (e.g. care homes, managed residential blocks, public buildings) because they lift people.
• Homelifts (home lifts) — small residential passenger lifts, typically 2–6 floors of travel. LOLER applies wherever the homelift is used in a workplace context — managed residential blocks where a managing agent oversees the equipment, lets, properties where staff use the lift in the course of work, or any installation where the building has dual residential/workplace use. The duty holder for a managed residential homelift is the managing agent or landlord, not the individual resident.
• Wheelchair platform lifts — vertical or inclined platforms providing step-free access.
• Firefighting and evacuation lifts — covered separately on our firefighting lifts page. Sometimes referred to as fireman's lifts, rescue lifts, or evacuation lifts — all describing the same regulatory category under BS EN 81-72 / 81-76 alongside LOLER.

The 6/12-Month Split

The single most important compliance question for lift inspections is "who travels in it" — that determines the interval:

Accessibility Lifts and the Equality Act 2010

Platform lifts, stairlifts, and wheelchair lifts have a regulatory profile slightly different from standard passenger lifts. Where they form part of the access provision for premises or a service, the Equality Act 2010 places a duty on service providers and employers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled users — and that duty is engaged by the equipment that has been installed.

The LOLER inspection regime applies in full (6-monthly examination). The practical implication is that an extended outage of an accessibility lift, without alternative arrangements in place, may amount to a failure to make reasonable adjustments under the Act. We treat accessibility lifts with the same statutory rigour and the same urgency on defect rectification as primary passenger lifts.

Insurance inspection of lifts

Many lift owners receive insurance policy schedules that require an "insurance inspection" of their passenger or goods lift. In practice this is the LOLER thorough examination described on this page. UK engineering insurance policies for lifts specify "thorough examination by a competent person at the statutory interval" — the same wording LOLER Regulation 9 uses. The report we issue after each examination is the document your insurer needs to see, the document the HSE expects you to retain, and the same document under any name a policy schedule may use ("competent person inspection", "engineering inspection", "thorough examination", "statutory lift inspection" — same regulatory work).

What a Lift Thorough Examination Covers

A lift examination covers the machine room (or motor housing), the car, the shaft, and the pit. Our Engineer Surveyors verify:

• Suspension rope condition, termination integrity, and tension balance
• Traction sheave wear and groove profile
• Overspeed governor function and safety gear deployment
• Car and landing door interlocks, including emergency release
• Buffer condition and pit cleanliness
• Brake operation, including static and dynamic tests
• Levelling accuracy, door dwell times, and emergency communication
• Machine-room access, ventilation, and lighting

Inspection Independent of the Maintenance Contractor

LOLER is explicit that the competent person carrying out a thorough examination must be independent of the maintenance arrangements. HSE guidance is unambiguous on this point: relying on the same company to maintain a lift and to declare it safe represents a conflict of interest that the regulations specifically exist to prevent.

Our Engineer Surveyors carry out thorough examinations only. We don't sell lift maintenance, parts, or modernisation — which is what makes our report a credible piece of evidence in the duty holder's compliance file.

Lift Inspections by Location

Passenger and goods lift thorough examinations across the South East:

• Kent Lift Inspections
• London Lift Inspections
• Essex Lift Inspections

Lift inspection by sector

Independent of any lift maintenance contractor — see why independence matters in statutory inspection for the structural case under LOLER Reg 9 + HSE L113.

Sector-specific patterns for passenger and goods lift compliance:

• Property Managers — block-managed residential and commercial buildings
• Care Homes — resident passenger lifts and platform lifts
• Hotels & Hospitality — guest lifts, service lifts, dumbwaiters
• Hospitals & Healthcare — clinical lifts and platform lifts in healthcare estates

Frequently Asked Questions