Council asbestos survey

Zorb74

Hi all. 

I’m a lease holder and my local council (Ealing) has now charged me twice over £300 for asbestos survey but have never taken a sample and have only viewed my property from the outside.
I can’t see how this can be done, if it’s legitimate and why it’s so expensive! If they’re  doing this to every property on my street they’re getting thousands of pound just for walking up and down looking at the outside of buildings! 

Can anyone let me know if this is normal conduct for asbestos surveys?
thanks in advance
Zorb

Bigphil1474

The owner of the building has a duty to manage asbestos, which will require surveying. How much that costs depends on the building size, and the nature of the asbestos. Have you asked them where the asbestos is and for a price break down? £300 does sound a bit much. When you say twice - is that twice in 2 years or twice in 20?

Eldi_Dos

I presume you are in a block of flats?

If so they could be checking communal areas and places where services go through walls and floors and may even require a cherry picker.

They will not be just walking up and down looking at the building but using trained personnel to check and report and take samples for testing if required.

eamon

CARS 2012 (Contol of Asbestos Regulations) tells the owner of the buidling what to do (and the frequency). Usually its just a visual inpection and the default if no access (or too lazy, unqualified) is to say asbestos is "assumed". Correct and appropriate sampling is the only way and then decisons can be made as to what to do next. The owner of the building needs to have formal compliance recording in place and any contractor/worker intending to work needs to ask and be given the most recent records. I used to do visual inspections for a living and a pet hate was seeing the word "Assumed" on last survey data.

To the OP, to me it looks like your building owner is just box ticking to avoid huge fines. Assuming that a 3rd party Contractor was used they would have likely been "cheap" yet able to produce a multipage flashy document with the actual results buried within. Their "client" would not have been that fussed won't read the documents, just happy that this task has been cleared and within the next 12 months repeated.

Thats why you have been charged £300.

Zorb74

Firstly, thank you for your replies. 

They did a visual inspection last year and again this year. They have said it will be an annual visual inspection of the soffit only to make sure it is safe but how would you know just by looking at it??!! 

It is a purpose built maisonette. 1 up, 1 down. It looks like a semi detached house with a door at the front and stairs to the side of the building. 

Built in 1950’s but they’re saying they were built in the 30’s which I know is not true because an elderly neighbour moved in when they were first built in the 50’s! 
would they not have a record of the materials used when it was built?