Scaffold handover certificate. A printable handover certificate for passing a completed scaffold to the client — what was erected, what it may be used for, what it was designed to, and who is accepting it.
This is the paper version. ScaffoldOptix does the same job on a phone, with the record filed against the scaffold and the site automatically.
What is on the sheet
- Site, client, scaffold reference and the location of the structure on site
- What has been erected, described well enough that the certificate matches one structure and not another
- What the scaffold is designed for — the duty it was built to, taken from the compliance sheet or the bespoke design rather than printed here
- Limitations and conditions of use: what must not be loaded, sheeted, altered or removed
- Confirmation it was erected to the design and inspected before first use
- Signature blocks for the contractor handing over and the client accepting, each dated
Why this record matters
A handover certificate is the moment responsibility moves. Up to it the scaffold belongs to the contractor who built it; after it, somebody else is using it and the contractor's exposure is whatever the certificate says it is. That makes the limitations section the most valuable part of the document and the part most often left as a printed platitude.
The duty the scaffold was built to is a field, not a figure printed on the form. What a boarded lift may carry comes from the TG20 compliance sheet or the bespoke design for that structure, and a certificate that states a class the scaffold was not designed to is worse than one that states nothing — it is an instruction to overload.
The clause that earns its keep is the one about alteration. Scaffolds get modified by people who did not build them: a tie removed to get a window in, a board lifted, a lift sheeted because the weather turned. The certificate is where it is put in writing that none of that is the client's to do, and it is the document that gets produced when somebody did it anyway.
Handover is also the natural moment to issue the tag and start the inspection clock, which is why this sheet asks for both. A certificate signed on site with an untagged scaffold behind it has recorded the handover and left the next person with nothing to look at.
Use it with
- Scaffold tag templateA printable scaffold tag for the access point — what the structure may be used for, when it was last inspected, and who to ask before touching it.
- Scaffold inspection reportA printable scaffold inspection report for the inspections the Work at Height Regulations require — what was looked at, what was found, and whether the structure is fit to be used.
- Scaffold design briefA printable design brief for commissioning a scaffold design — the information a designer needs before they can design anything, gathered once rather than over a fortnight of phone calls.
- Scaffold adaptation recordA printable record of an alteration to a scaffold — what changed, who authorised it, who did it, and the inspection that has to happen before it is used again.
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© 2026 ScaffoldOptix. Free to print, copy and use in your business. Not for resale. Please keep this notice.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. General guidance, not legal advice. Checked October 2026.