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Lightning protection
regulations

Is it a legal requirement? What the law says.

Ask us about your building

The short answer

There is no law in the UK that requires every building to have a lightning protection system. There is a law that requires you to maintain one if you have it. Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires electrical systems to be maintained so far as is reasonably practicable so as to prevent danger, and a lightning protection system is an electrical system for these purposes.

So the honest position is this. Installing is usually driven by risk assessment, design standards, planning conditions and insurance. Maintaining is a legal duty. That distinction is the one most building owners get wrong, and it is the expensive way round.

Where it comes from

  • Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. Regulation 4(2) requires the system to be maintained to prevent danger. This is the enforceable one.
  • BS EN IEC 62305. Not law, but the standard a designer works to and the benchmark a system is judged against.
  • BS 7671. Covers surge protective devices within the electrical installation.
  • Insurance. Most commercial policies expect a current test certificate, and will ask for it.
  • Planning and heritage consent. Can require protection, and controls how it is installed on a listed building.
  • General health and safety duties. Expect risks to be assessed, which is what BS EN 62305-2 does.

The maintenance duty

This is the part that catches people. A building with no lightning protection and a risk assessment justifying that position is in a defensible place. A building with a lightning protection system that has not been tested for four years is not, because the duty to maintain attached the moment the system was installed.

If you have inherited a building with conductors on the elevation and no paperwork, that is the situation to deal with first. We can test what is there, tell you what condition it is in, and start the record again.

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Insurance in practice

In our experience insurers are the reason most enquiries about compliance actually get made. A renewal question, a survey, or a claim on a neighbouring property triggers a request for the current test certificate, and the certificate either exists or it does not.

Insurers are generally not asking for perfection. They are asking for evidence that the system is being looked after on a defined cycle, which is why an eleven month testing interval and a maintained log book answer the question more cleanly than an expensive one off inspection.

Common questions

Is lightning protection a legal requirement in the UK?

No single law requires every building to have a lightning protection system. There is a legal requirement to maintain one once it exists: Regulation 4(2) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 requires electrical systems to be maintained so as to prevent danger, and a lightning protection system is an electrical system. The obligation to install usually arrives through a risk assessment, a designer working to BS EN 62305, a planning or heritage condition, or an insurance requirement.

Do Building Regulations require lightning protection?

The Building Regulations do not impose a blanket requirement for lightning protection. Where a designer specifies a system, BS EN IEC 62305 is the standard used, and surge protection inside the building falls under BS 7671. Individual projects can pick up a requirement through planning conditions, insurer requirements or a client specification.

Does my house need lightning protection?

Most UK houses do not have it and do not need it. A BS EN 62305-2 risk assessment on a typical two storey house in a built up area will normally come out below the tolerable risk threshold. Isolated properties, tall houses, houses on high ground and listed properties are the exceptions worth assessing.

Who is responsible for keeping the system maintained?

The duty holder for the electrical system, which in practice means the building owner, the landlord, or the employer occupying the building. Under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 that duty cannot be contracted away, although the testing itself is normally carried out by a specialist contractor.

What happens if we do not have a current test certificate?

The immediate risk is commercial rather than legal. Most insurers ask for a current certificate and can query cover at renewal or after a claim if the record has a gap. Separately, if an incident occurred and the system had not been maintained, the maintenance duty under Regulation 4(2) would be the point of examination.

Do listed buildings and churches have different rules?

The standard is the same, but the risk assessment treats them differently. BS EN 62305-2 includes loss of cultural heritage as a category of loss, which pushes historic buildings towards protection more readily than their size alone would. Consent for the installation is the additional step, since conductor routes on a listed elevation need approval before work starts.

Not sure?

Tell us what your insurer or surveyor has asked for and we will tell you what it actually requires. Call 01892 667258.

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