Occupational safety for real estate and property management
Property managers and estate agents work at the desk and away from the office: at flat handovers, viewings, when recording damage and at owners' meetings. Both places of work count for occupational safety. Where the business runs a caretaker service, one more question needs an answer before any assessment: who actually employs the caretaker.
- Real estate & property management
Property management between office, building and owners' meeting
Part of the work takes place in the managed properties. Your employees often carry out viewings, property inspections and handovers alone, in rooms whose condition nobody knows in advance. An assessment that looks only at the office does not capture this; field work needs a section of its own.
If the management company employs caretakers or cleaning staff itself, the assessment has to cover manual work as well: ladders, power tools, winter gritting, grounds maintenance and cleaning agents. If instead the owners' association or an individual owner is the employer, the employer's duties lie with them, even if the management company organises the work day to day. Check the employment contracts before the specialist starts the assessment. Otherwise an activity is left out or ends up in the wrong assessment.
The duty to keep a property safe for tenants and visitors, with cleared paths, sound stairs and lit cellars, lies primarily with the owner. It does not replace the risk assessment for your own employees who use the same stairs during a property inspection. The two topics often land on the same desk, but they belong in separate records.
Property management and estate agency: insurance association, thresholds, company cars
| Item | Real estate and property management |
|---|---|
| Accident insurance institution | VBG: property managers and housing companies under the risk tariff position for the real estate sector, estate agents under the position for brokerage and agency businesses |
| Caretakers and building upkeep | VBG, risk tariff position for building upkeep, including for owners' associations. Self-employed caretakers who mainly provide craft or construction work for several clients usually belong to BG BAU |
| Economic sector | WZ 68.3 real estate activities on a fee or contract basis |
| Support group under DGUV Regulation 2 | III: above 20 employees (Annex 2) 0.5 hours of basic support per employee and year, shared between specialist and occupational physician, at least 20 per cent each. Company-specific support comes on top |
| From the first employee | Risk assessment, safety training, first-aid organisation, appointment of an occupational safety specialist and an occupational physician |
| Up to 20 employees | Annex 1 of DGUV Regulation 2 with no fixed support hours |
| Above 20 employees | Occupational safety committee meeting once per calendar quarter (section 11 ASiG) |
| Up to 50 employees | Unternehmermodell permitted as an alternative. More than 50: standard support |
| Company vehicles | Inspection by a competent person as needed and at least once a year (section 57 DGUV Regulation 70) |
Property managers, accounts staff and assistants count, as do caretakers and cleaning staff you employ, including those on a mini-job basis. Part-time staff count proportionally towards the threshold of 20: up to 20 hours a week as 0.5, up to 30 hours as 0.75.
Where the risk assessment of a property management company starts
- Commuting and journeys. Travel between properties is insured activity. Anyone frequently on the road carries a markedly higher accident risk than a purely office-based person, and that belongs in the assessment.
- Lone working during viewings. Viewings often happen alone, sometimes in vacant or unfamiliar properties. Regular lone working needs a rule in the risk assessment, such as an obligation to check in afterwards.
- Unknown property condition. Building sites, vacant buildings and basements bring hazards that do not occur in an office: falls, trips, unclear wiring. A short briefing on behaviour on site is more effective here than any office measure.
- Visitors in the office. Tenants and owners come in. Traffic and escape routes have to work for people unfamiliar with the building, and handling tense conversations belongs to mental stress.
Owners' meetings are often held in the evening in rented rooms and are not always calm. Working hours, the journey home and dealing with heated discussions therefore belong in the assessment too.
What walkthroughs at property managers and estate agents reveal
The office floor is usually unremarkable; the focus lies elsewhere. Property inspections, handovers and viewings create hazards that do not exist in the office: building sites and vacant units, unsecured stairs and roof access, cellars without lighting, dogs in occupied units. On top of that comes the driving itself. What is regularly missing is any arrangement for lone working away from the office: no agreement on who is where, and no point at which a missing check-in would be noticed.
Safety training in property management: office and field work
Safety training therefore needs a field-work part that goes beyond office topics: how to behave in vacant units and on building sites, securing your own position when working alone, dealing with aggressive behaviour during handovers and evictions, and the reporting route after an accident while out. Commuting accidents and accidents during field work are reportable accidents at work like any other, which is frequently underestimated in practice.
An accident while driving from one property to the next is an accident at work, because the journey is part of the insured activity itself. A commuting accident mainly concerns the journey between home and the place of work. Accidents at work in the office: reporting and deadlines explains when the insurance association has to be notified.
Related
- External occupational safety specialist: Scope of services, support models and hours for management companies with field staff.
- Occupational safety for notaries: Where every property purchase is notarised, with visitor traffic of its own.
- Hazardous substances in the office: When cleaning and care products are stored in the caretaker's room.
- Training-interval calculator: When office and field staff are next due for training.
- First-aid kit calculator: How many first-aid kits your office premises need.
Legal basis
Frequently asked questions
Which employers' liability insurance association covers property management companies?
The VBG. Property managers and housing companies sit in its risk tariff under the position for the real estate sector, estate agents under the position for brokerage and agency businesses. Building upkeep belongs to the VBG as well. Self-employed caretaker services that mainly provide craft or construction work for several clients are a different case: they usually belong to BG BAU. Your membership notice is binding.
Who is responsible for the occupational safety of a caretaker employed by an owners' association?
The employer, meaning whoever signed the employment contract. If the association of flat owners hired the caretaker, it is the employer. The management company may organise the tasks on its behalf, but overall responsibility stays with the association. If the caretaker is employed by the management company, the work belongs in its own risk assessment.
Do estate agents have to have their company cars inspected every year?
For company vehicles, DGUV Regulation 70 requires an inspection by a competent person as needed and at least once a year (section 57). The statutory roadworthiness test (Hauptuntersuchung) does not fully replace it. According to the VBG, if a roadworthiness test without defects is on record, the competent person's inspection can be limited to occupational safety aspects. If employees use their own cars for viewings, the driving still belongs in the risk assessment.
Other business types
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