Landlord gas safety checks: the yearly check and record

In England, each gas appliance and flue you’re responsible for must be checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer, at intervals of no more than 12 months. A copy of the gas safety record goes to each existing tenant within 28 days of the check, and to a new tenant before they move in. The app calls it the gas safety record: the record often called a CP12.

What the check covers

The check covers each gas appliance and flue you’re responsible for. An appliance your tenant is entitled to remove isn’t one of them. The first check is within 12 months of installation, then at intervals of no more than 12 months.

It helps to give the engineer a list of every gas appliance in the home, so none is missed. If your tenant has a gas appliance of their own, ask them about it too.

Checking early without losing your date

A check up to 2 months before the deadline keeps the old deadline date for the next one.

The app takes the day before the anniversary as the last day, so its date is never late. The record’s row names that date Next check due by, never “expires”.

The property’s page offers Send to the trade’s name for the check from 6 weeks before the date the app keeps. Book the gas safety check or EICR has the steps.

When you add the new record, the app works out the next date from the last record’s deadline where the check was in those 2 months. The date it keeps is never later than the one printed on the record, and the row says so where the two differ.

Who may do it

The check must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Check their number on the Gas Safe Register before they come. How to check a gas engineer is Gas Safe registered takes you through it.

Giving your tenants the record

A copy goes to each existing tenant within 28 days of the check. A new tenant gets a copy before they move in.

From the record’s row, Give a Copy to the Tenant opens Serve a document with the record chosen. It is on the row while no copy is recorded for your current tenant and nothing else needs doing first, and under the row’s More button otherwise. For each tenant, the app says whether it counts the email as serving it, or as a courtesy copy.

The app counts an email as serving it only where the tenant has agreed to documents by email, or the written tenancy agreement names email. Otherwise it sends a courtesy copy, and the document still has to be given on paper. For a copy you handed over or posted yourself, Record Date Given, under the row’s More button, records the date, and nothing is sent.

A copy given before a new tenancy starts counts as given to that tenancy. Until a copy is recorded for your current tenant, the property’s page lists the record as not given to them.

Keeping the records

The record of each check is kept until two further checks have been made.

In the app, a new record becomes the property’s current one, and the earlier ones stay beneath it, folded away. Each date a copy was given goes into that tenancy’s evidence file.

If your tenant won’t let the engineer in

Explain in writing why the check matters for their safety, and offer more than one time. It helps to offer a time that suits them, such as an evening or a weekend, if your engineer can do it.

Keep a record of every attempt: each letter, email, call and visit. If you’re still refused, take advice from a solicitor or Citizens Advice.

If the day your engineer gave has passed and the check didn’t happen, choose It Didn’t Happen… from the More button on its card. You can record that they couldn’t get in, ring them, or send it to someone else.

A phone call or a visit that happened outside the app goes into the evidence file with Record Conversation. Keep your tenant told and arrange a visit covers offering times for a repair.

What the law says

In England, each gas appliance and flue the landlord is responsible for must be checked by a Gas Safe registered engineer. That doesn’t include an appliance the tenant is entitled to remove. The checks are within 12 months of installation, then at intervals of no more than 12 months. A check up to 2 months before the deadline keeps the old deadline date for the next one.

The record is kept until two further checks have been made. A copy goes to each existing tenant within 28 days of the check, and to a new tenant before they move in.

For a particular tenancy, and anything this guide leaves open, take advice from a solicitor or Citizens Advice.