The Malta Lift Association has received many enquiries from lift owners and users after its public call for greater safety awareness, last week. Those who wish to contact the association may do so on 9921- 5366 or by e-mailing mla@maltanet.net. The association provides this information as a public service, and does not charge for it.
A spokesman for the association said the greater part of the enquiries came from people who wanted to know more about the obligatory CE certification, safety testing, upgrading older lifts to conform to EU safety standards, and notified bodies.
"We set up this association because we felt that there was a dearth of awareness about lift-owners' obligations with regard to safety and conformity with the regulations, and we feel that we have now got the ball rolling in this regard," he said.
"People's safety is being put at risk by cowboy operators who cobble their lifts together from spare parts; these lifts could never be CE-certified, though CE certification is obligatory under the regulations that came into force in 2002."
The Malta Lift Association brings together most of Malta's reputable lift installers, who are committed to conformity to EU standards and Malta's regulations of 2002.
These lift installation companies are, in alphabetical order, Advent Marketing & Services Ltd, Apex Lifts Ltd, Etralia Ltd, Eurolift (Michael Vella) Ltd, Highrise Company Ltd, TUV Austria (Malta Office), Mekanika Ltd, Carmelo Farrugia Melfar Ltd, Natalino Camilleri Ltd, SS Lifts Ltd and Titan International Ltd.
The members of the association are concerned about the fact that the vast majority of lift-owners and lift-buyers remain unaware of their obligations. Lift-owners generally do not know that they should hold the lift's original documentation in the same way they are obliged to hold their car 'log book'.
"The documentation belongs with the lift in the same way that a log book belongs with a car," the spokesman said. "When a developer buys a lift for an apartment block, he gets this documentation - if he has bought the lift from a reputable supplier, that is.
"Once all the apartments have been sold, the individual owners are obliged under the recent Condominium Act to set up an owners' association and appoint an administrator. The developer should then officially transfer against signature the original lift documents to this administrator, who holds them in the name of the joint owners. Each apartment owner should be given a copy of this documentation."
Apartment owners should also insist that the lift they use every day is routinely maintained by a reputable lift company, the spokesman added. "Lift maintenance is neither an optional extra nor a matter of an occasional servicing by somebody who once worked for a lift company and has since taken to moonlighting in this field. There is safety at stake. People who would never leave their cars unserviced in case the brakes fail thinking nothing of rarely having their lift serviced, even though there is so much at stake."