Do Landlords Need a Legionella Certificate? (2026)

If you have had an official-looking email warning that your rental needs a "legionella certificate" or you could be fined, you are not alone — and you are being sold something you do not need. There is no such thing as a legally required legionella certificate for a normal rented home. What the law actually asks for is much smaller, and for most properties you can do it yourself in an afternoon.

Here is what is real, what is a sales pitch, and how to cover yourself properly.

This is general guidance, not legal advice.

The certificate that does not exist

Let us be blunt, because the scare emails are not. The Health and Safety Executive — the regulator — says it plainly: health and safety law does not require landlords to obtain or produce a "legionella test certificate".

There is no certificate. There is no annual test you are legally obliged to buy. Companies that email landlords insisting otherwise, often with a fine figure attached and a payment link, are trading on confusion. Some of what they sell is fine work; the "you must have this certificate or else" framing is not true.

So if that is what you were worried about, you can stop worrying about the certificate. What you cannot ignore is the actual duty underneath it.

What the law actually requires

The real duty is to assess and control the risk of legionella, not to test or certify. It comes from section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH): you must make sure your tenants are not exposed to a health and safety risk, and legionella — the bacteria behind Legionnaires’ disease, which grows in stagnant water systems — is one of those risks.

In practice that means a legionella risk assessment: a look at the water system to identify anything that could let the bacteria grow, and simple steps to control it. The HSE is clear this "does not require an in-depth, detailed assessment" for an ordinary home.

You can almost certainly do it yourself

This is the part the certificate-sellers would rather you did not know. The HSE says most landlords can assess the risk themselves and do not need to be professionally trained or accredited. For a typical flat or house on mains water, the assessment is largely common sense:

Write down what you checked and what you found, keep it on file, and review it if the property or the plumbing changes. That written risk assessment — not a bought certificate — is what shows you took the duty seriously.

Testing for legionella is not usually needed for domestic systems; it is for larger, more complex ones (big tanks, cooling towers, care settings). If you genuinely have a complicated system or you are not confident, you can bring in a specialist — but that is a choice, not a legal requirement, and it is the exception, not the rule.

Between tenancies is when it matters most

The one time to pay attention is a void. A property that has sat empty for weeks — no taps run, water standing in the pipes and the shower — is exactly where legionella can build up. Before a new tenant moves in after a void, it is worth flushing the system through: run the taps and shower for a few minutes to clear the standing water. It costs nothing and it is the single most useful thing you can actually do.

It is also worth giving new tenants a quick heads-up to flush through outlets they do not use often, and to keep showerheads clean. That, plus your written assessment, is a proportionate response to a genuinely low risk in most homes.

So, to be clear

How LetCompliance helps: your legionella risk assessment sits alongside your gas, EICR and EPC records on each property, with the review date tracked, so the one genuine duty is logged and dated — and you are never again tempted to pay for a "certificate" you do not need.

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