Malta's work-at-height rules for facade work

Most people commissioning facade work in Malta have never read the rules that govern it, and there is a reason for that: they were renumbered. If you arrived from the UK you will also be looking for the HSE and for something resembling the Work at Height Regulations 2005. Neither applies. The regulator here is the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA), and the two instruments that decide how someone may hang off the side of your building are subsidiary legislation, not primary law.

The 424 → 646 renumbering

Older method statements, older insurance schedules and a good deal of older advice still cite subsidiary legislation under Chapter 424. OHSA's legislation page now lists the current instruments under Chapter 646. The substance carried across; the shelf mark changed. For facade work the two that matter are:

If a contractor sends you a document citing S.L. 424.xx, that is not automatically a red flag — plenty of boilerplate has simply not been refreshed — but ask for the current citation. You want to be able to open the text and read it, and the version you will find at legislation.mt is the 646 one.

S.L. 646.27: collective protection comes first

Paragraph 5 of the Schedule to S.L. 646.27 deals with falls from a height. The structure is a hierarchy, and the hierarchy is the whole point.

Falls are to be prevented by collective protection measures — physically enclosing or guarding the place of work, so that nobody can fall regardless of what they clip on to. Guard-rails, working platforms, edge protection, nets. Only where collective protection is not reasonably practicable, given the nature of the work, does the law permit personal protective measures such as harnesses and lines.

This matters for a building owner because it inverts the question most people ask. The question is not "is rope access allowed?" It is "can this particular job be done from a protected platform, and if not, why not?" A competent contractor should be able to answer that for your building specifically — a narrow Valletta street with no pavement to stand a tower on, a set-back terrace with no anchor for a platform, a shell-form block where the facade is being finished before any permanent edge protection exists — rather than simply asserting a preference.

Paragraph 6.3 of the same Schedule addresses scaffolding certification. If scaffolding is the answer, it is not enough that it looks solid: the regulations require it to be checked and certified by a competent person. Ask to see that certificate before anyone climbs it, and ask who signed it.

S.L. 646.24: the conditions attached to rope access

Where rope access and positioning techniques are used, the Schedule to S.L. 646.24 — paragraphs 5.2 to 5.7 and paragraph 6 — attaches specific conditions. In substance:

1. Two separately anchored ropes. A working line, used for access, descent and support, and a separate safety line as a back-up. Separately anchored means what it says: one anchor failing must not take both lines.
2. A harness attached to the safety line. The worker's harness is connected to the back-up, not only to the line carrying their weight.
3. Self-locking devices. The working line carries a safe means of ascent and descent and a self-locking system that arrests the worker if they lose control. The safety line carries a mobile fall protection device that follows the worker's movements.
4. Tools tethered. Tools and other accessories are to be secured to the harness or the seat, or by other suitable means. This is as much about the pavement below as about the technician.
5. Rescue planned in advance. The work must be properly planned and supervised so that a worker can be rescued immediately if something goes wrong. Waiting for the fire service is not a rescue plan; a suspended worker does not have that long.
6. Training specific to the operation, including rescue procedures.

There is a narrow exception contemplated for the second rope, where using it would make the work more dangerous — but it is an exception, subject to a risk assessment and compensating measures, not a general licence to work on one line. If a quotation describes a single-rope method, that is a question to put in writing.

What OHSA found in 2025

The OHSA Annual Report 2025 records more than 23,700 inspections. Its infringements table, Table 9, shows fall protection non-compliant on 23% of inspected sites. Nine workplace deaths were recorded in the year.

Roughly one site in four inspected had something wrong with its fall protection. That is the base rate you are contracting against. It is not an argument that contractors are careless as a class; it is an argument that compliance is not the default and you should check rather than assume.

Your position as the person commissioning the work

The sources cited here set out the technical requirements. They do not, in the paragraphs cited, resolve how liability is apportioned between an owner, a condominium administrator, a facilities manager and a contractor — that lives in the body of S.L. 646.27 and is worth reading before you sign anything. What is clear is practical rather than legal: the work happens on your building, the ropes hang over your entrance, and if OHSA inspects, it inspects your site.

Before work starts, ask for and keep:

• A written risk assessment and method statement for your building, naming the anchor points to be used.
• The justification for personal rather than collective protection, if rope access is proposed.
• The rescue plan, including who performs the rescue and how long it takes.
• Evidence of the technicians' training for the operations envisaged, including rescue.
• If scaffolding is used, the paragraph 6.3 certification from the competent person who checked it.

Two Maltese specifics are worth flagging even though these regulations are silent on them. First, on a condominium the facade is usually common property, and who may authorise works on it is a matter for condominium law, not for OHSA — the safety rules will not tell you whether you needed a resolution. Second, in Gozo everything arrives by ferry, scaffolding included; the practical cost and delay of the collective-protection option is different there, which is a commercial fact, not a legal one. The hierarchy in paragraph 5 still applies on both islands.