In the UK, am I liable if a roofer falls off my roof?

The question homeowners ask quietly before they book anyone: if a roofer comes off the roof, is it on me?

Family-run, fully insured and working with our own experienced local roofers across Surrey and the Wey Valley, with a 25-year written workmanship guarantee on every job. We carry out roof repairs in Godalming and across the whole area.

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In the UK, am I liable if a roofer falls off my roof?

Usually not. A properly insured roofing firm carries its own public liability and employer's liability cover, and the responsibility for working safely at height sits with the contractor doing the work. You become exposed when there is no insurance behind the job, when you have directed the work yourself, or when you knew about a hazard and said nothing.

The contractor carries the duty to work safely, not the householder

When you hire a roofing business to repair or replace a roof, that business is the one deciding how to get up there, what access equipment to use, how to edge-protect the perimeter and whether the weather is fit for it. Those are its decisions and its liability. A homeowner is not expected to know about scaffold design or ladder footing, and nobody sensible will ask you to.

The practical test is simple: ask what cover the firm holds, and ask to see it. If one of its roofers is hurt on your roof, that is normally a claim against the firm that employs them, which is what employers' liability insurance is for. Public liability insurance covers something else: injury to other people, and damage to your property. Wey Valley Roofing is fully insured and holds Public Liability Insurance, and the work is carried out by the firm's own experienced local roofers rather than subcontracted strangers whose cover you have never seen.

For roof repairs in Guildford and the whole area around it, the same insurance and the same team turn up every time.

Where householders do come unstuck is in casual arrangements. Cash to a man with a ladder, no company name, no cover, no written price. If he falls, the claim has one obvious target, and that is the person whose roof he was standing on and whose instructions he was following.

Where a homeowner can genuinely pick up liability

There are a handful of situations where the risk does shift towards you, and they are worth knowing plainly.

• You engaged someone with no insurance. No public liability, no employer's liability, nothing to claim against. The injured party looks for whoever is left.
• You supplied the access. Lending your own ladder, your own tower, your own boards. If the equipment fails, you have put your name on it.
• You directed the method. Telling someone to skip the scaffold to keep the cost down, or to work through a gale because you are going away next week.
• You hid a known hazard. A rotten fascia, a soft area of decking, a fragile rooflight, an asbestos-cement garage sheet you have known about for years. Say it out loud before anyone climbs.
• You were effectively the employer. Paying by the hour, providing the tools, controlling the hours and the sequence. That starts to look like a working relationship rather than a contract with a firm.

None of that applies when you hand the job to a roofing business, agree a fixed price in writing and then leave them to it. On roof repairs in Woking, as on every job we take on, the arrangement is the same: our access, our method, our insurance, our problem.

Fragile roofs, asbestos garages and the hazards you should mention first

Most homeowner-side risk on a domestic roof is not the height, it is the surface. Old asbestos-cement garage sheets and corrugated roof lights are the classic ones. They look solid and they are not, and a foot through one is the most common serious domestic roof accident there is.

If you have an asbestos-cement garage roof, say so at the survey stage. We assess it and advise the safe, compliant route under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. We do not carry out licensed asbestos removal ourselves, and we will tell you straight where that line falls rather than pretending it is a normal tear-off. Profiled sheet roofs have their own rules on fixing, walking and loading, set out in BSI's BS 5427 code of practice for profiled sheet cladding, and that is treated as part of the job rather than an afterthought.

The other things worth flagging before anyone goes up: previous DIY repairs, patched flat roofs of unknown build-up, soft or spongy areas underfoot, loose chimney brickwork, overhead cables near the eaves, and any dog that will not tolerate strangers in the garden. Say all of it. It costs you nothing and it removes the one argument anyone could make against you later.

What a properly run job looks like from your side of the fence

You do not need to police a roofing job. You do need to see that it is being run rather than improvised. Proper access goes up before the work starts, not halfway through. The perimeter is protected. Materials are landed and stacked, not thrown. Fixing and wind uplift are done to BS 5534, flat roofs to BS 6229, ventilation and condensation to BS 5250, rainwater sizing to BS EN 12056, and leadwork to Lead Sheet Association guidance, because a roof that is fixed properly is also a roof that is safer to stand on while it is being built.

Scott has spent more than 36 years on Surrey roofs and still answers the phone himself, whatever the hour. Every job leaves with a 25-year written workmanship guarantee, handed over before the team goes, covering repairs as well as new roofs. A firm that expects to be answerable for 25 years is not the firm cutting corners on access to save a morning.

So the short version stands. Hire an insured roofing business, tell them what you know about the roof, agree the price in writing and stay off the ladder yourself. Do that and the liability sits where it belongs.