What Happens If Lifting Equipment Is Not LOLER Compliant? And How to Put It Right

Most businesses discover a compliance gap the same way: someone goes looking for a report and cannot find one, or spots that the date on it passed months ago. The useful question at that point is not whether it matters, but what actually happens next. Here is the chain of events when lifting equipment is not LOLER compliant, and how to put it right.

What Happens If Lifting Equipment Is Not LOLER Compliant?

Non-compliant lifting equipment should be taken out of use until it has been examined. If a competent person finds a defect posing an existing or imminent risk of serious injury, they must report it to the enforcing authority as well as to you. From there you face possible enforcement notices, prosecution and insurance problems.

That sequence matters more than the headline penalties, because the first consequences are operational and land immediately. We carry out LOLER examinations across Berkshire and the surrounding counties, and the disruption of pulling a machine off a job is usually what focuses minds.

The Equipment Comes Out of Use

This is the immediate practical consequence, and the one businesses underestimate. Lifting equipment without a valid thorough examination, or with an unactioned defect on its last report, should not stay in service.

In our experience that is where the real cost sits. A forklift or telehandler standing idle stalls everything around it, and hiring a replacement at short notice costs far more than the examination would have. The risk is not theoretical either, since the equipment is unproven precisely when your team is relying on it.

Serious Defects Go to the HSE, Not Just to You

This is the part that catches people out. When a competent person examines equipment and finds a defect that involves an existing or imminent risk of serious personal injury, they do not simply tell you and leave you to decide what to do.

Under Regulation 10 of LOLER, they must notify you, and send a copy of that report to the relevant enforcing authority as soon as practicable. That is the HSE for industrial workplaces and the local authority for most others.

So the reporting is not discretionary and it is not something you can agree to keep in-house. Once a serious defect is found, the regulator learns about it, which is why leaving a known problem unexamined tends to make matters worse rather than quieter.

How Enforcement Escalates

If the HSE becomes aware of non-compliance, whether through a report, a complaint, an accident or a routine visit, the response usually escalates in stages.

An improvement notice requires you to put things right within a set period. A prohibition notice is more serious and stops the activity immediately, which in practice means the equipment or the operation is shut down until it is safe. Prosecution follows where breaches are serious or persistent, and fines for health and safety offences can be substantial. Where breaches have contributed to serious harm, individual duty holders have received custodial sentences.

An inspector will typically ask for your examination reports first, so missing paperwork tends to shape the visit from the outset.

The Costs That Are Not Fines

The regulator is rarely the most expensive part. Insurance is the bigger exposure, because if equipment fails and there is no valid report, an insurer can dispute the claim and leave the business carrying the loss.

Contracts matter too. Main contractors and clients increasingly ask to see current examination reports before equipment goes anywhere near their site, and a gap in the records can cost you the work regardless of what the HSE does.

How to Tell If Your Equipment Is Non-Compliant

Most gaps are easy to spot once you know what to look at. Check whether any of the following apply:

• There is no report of thorough examination, or nobody can locate it

• The last examination is out of date, whether that is the 6 month interval for equipment lifting people, the 12 month interval for other lifting equipment, or the interval in your written scheme

• Defects listed on the last report have not been actioned

• Hired-in equipment arrived without a current report being handed over

• Lifting accessories such as slings, chains and hooks have been overlooked, since they need examining in their own right

• The equipment is not clearly marked with its safe working load

• The equipment has been modified, repaired or involved in an incident since it was last examined

The last two come up more often than you would expect, and hired-in kit is the single most common gap we see, usually because everyone assumes someone else has it covered. Our guidance on how often LOLER inspections should be carried out sets out the intervals in more detail.

What to Do If You Find You Are Not Compliant

Discovering a gap is not the disaster it feels like, provided you act on it rather than hoping the date passes unnoticed.

Take the equipment out of service first, and make sure people know why, so it does not quietly go back into use. Then arrange a thorough examination by a competent person, which for a warehouse operation usually starts with the obvious candidates like forklift inspection and the accessories that go with them.

Act on whatever the report says, keep the report on file, and put the next date in a diary rather than relying on memory. If you are unsure who is qualified to carry out the work, our explanation of who can carry out LOLER inspections covers what competence actually means here.

The Bottom Line

Non-compliant lifting equipment should stop being used until it has been examined, serious defects reach the enforcing authority whether you report them or not, and the knock-on effects reach your insurance and your contracts as readily as your legal position.

None of that is difficult to avoid. Knowing which equipment is due when, keeping the reports where you can find them, and examining hired-in kit with the same discipline as your own is most of the job.