Compliance & responsibility
Sign the lease on a catering unit and you may inherit years of someone else's grease - and the compliance liability that comes with it. Check first.
The short answer
When you take on a catering unit, the extract system comes with it - and so does its condition and its compliance history, or the lack of one. From the day you become the occupier running the kitchen, you are the responsible person for that system under the Fire Safety Order, whatever the previous tenant did or did not do. That makes the ductwork a due-diligence item, not an afterthought. A short check before you sign can be the difference between a clean start and inheriting a hidden liability.
What to ask for and look at
Ask for the last TR19 certificate and the verification report behind it. If they exist, read whether the clean was full or partial and how recent it is - a partial clean or an old certificate tells you the concealed ductwork may not have been touched. If no records exist at all, assume the worst and price a full clean into your fit-out. Ask for any handover or operation-and-maintenance documentation that mentions the extract system and its access panels.
Then look at the system itself, ideally with a specialist. Are there access panels along the ductwork, and can they actually be opened, or has the previous fit-out sealed them behind finishes? Can the concealed and vertical runs be reached at all, or will you need panels retrofitted before the system can ever be cleaned compliantly? A canopy that looks spotless tells you nothing about the duct behind it - which is exactly where the inherited grease and the inherited risk sit.
Why it pays to check first
The trap is timing. Once you are operating the kitchen you own the compliance position, including any grease the previous tenant left in the system. If a fire officer or insurer looks at the ductwork in your first months and finds it non-compliant, it is your problem - the fact that you did not create the build-up is no defence. Worse, dilapidations at the end of your own lease may require you to hand the system back clean and certified, so an uncleaned inheritance becomes a cost you carry at both ends.
A baseline survey before you sign, or as a condition of signing, changes the negotiation entirely. It gives you a documented starting point, lets you require the outgoing tenant or landlord to fund a clean, and tells you whether access panels need retrofitting before you commit. Discovering the system cannot be cleaned to bare metal after you have signed is a far more expensive way to learn the same fact.
Starting clean
The strongest position for an incoming tenant is a documented clean start: a full survey and, where needed, a canopy-to-discharge clean to TR19 Grease with a fresh certificate before you begin trading. From there your compliance history is your own, built on a known baseline - not a mystery inherited from whoever had the keys before you.
Questions
Ask for the last TR19 certificate and verification report, check whether cleans were full or partial and how recent, confirm access panels exist and can be opened, and get a baseline survey of the concealed runs before you sign.
Once you are the occupier running the kitchen, yes - you are the responsible person for the system, including any inherited build-up. Not having created it is not a defence at inspection or claim time.
Assume the concealed ductwork has not been properly cleaned and price a full clean into your fit-out. Use the absence of records to negotiate a clean funded by the outgoing party before you commit.
The canopy is the visible part; the fire risk and the inherited grease sit in the concealed ductwork behind it. A spotless canopy over a greasy duct is the classic false reassurance.
Yes, and it is sensible to. A baseline survey before signing lets you require the outgoing tenant or landlord to fund a clean, and reveals whether access panels need retrofitting before the system can ever be cleaned compliantly.
Phoenix Duct Clean · by the numbers
A baseline survey tells you the real state of the extract system before you inherit responsibility for it.