The landlord gas safety certificate: what the law actually asks for

If a rented home in England has gas, the landlord must have every gas appliance and flue in it checked for safety by a Gas Safe registered engineer at least once every 12 months, keep a record of each check, and give the tenant a copy — within 28 days of the check for a tenant already living there, and before they move in for a new one. The duty is regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, and breaching it is a criminal offence. "CP12" and "landlord gas safety record" are what the trade calls the record; the regulations never use either name.

That paragraph is most of it. The rest of this post is the detail that catches people out — mostly around dates, and around what "giving the tenant a copy" actually requires.

What the check covers, and what it does not

The duty attaches to the gas fittings you provide: the boiler, a gas hob or cooker you supplied, a gas fire, and the pipework that feeds them, plus any flue serving them. It also reaches an appliance elsewhere in the building that serves the flat and is yours or under your control — a boiler in a shared plant room, for instance.

It does not reach an appliance the tenant brought with them and is entitled to take away. A gas cooker the tenant owns is theirs to look after.

Two layers are worth keeping apart. The general duty is to keep every relevant gas fitting and flue maintained in a safe condition, all year round. The annual safety check is a specific part of that duty, applied to each appliance and flue. A clean record from March does not answer for a fault reported in October.

If there is no gas at the property at all, there is nothing for the regulation to attach to.

Every 12 months — and why booking a few weeks early costs you nothing

Each appliance and flue must be checked at intervals of not more than 12 months since its last check. When a new tenancy starts, each one must have been checked in the 12 months before it begins — so an old record carried over from the last tenant is fine as long as it is still inside its year.

The rule that surprises most landlords is regulation 36A, added in April 2018. A check completed in the two months ending with the deadline is treated as if it had been carried out on the deadline itself. So an engineer who can only come seven weeks early does not cost you seven weeks: the next check falls due twelve months after the old deadline, not twelve months after the visit.

The window is two months and no more. Book three months early and the new twelve months run from the day of the visit, which is the version of this that quietly moves a landlord's gas date forward a little every year.

Who is allowed to do it

Only an engineer registered with the body HSE approves for the purpose — in practice, one on the Gas Safe Register. A check by anybody else does not discharge the duty, however competent they are, and the record itself has to carry the engineer's registration number.

That number is worth checking on the Gas Safe Register before the visit rather than after it. Registration lapses, and a record from an engineer whose registration had lapsed is not a record that discharges anything.

What the record says, and how long to keep it

The record has to show the date of the check, the address, your name and address (or your agent's), each appliance or flue checked and where it is, any safety defect found, any remedial action taken, confirmation that the check covered what the regulations require, and the engineer's name, signature and registration number.

Keep each record until two further checks have been carried out on that appliance or flue. For an appliance you have since removed, keep the last record for two years from its final check. "Keep it for two years" is the usual shorthand, and it is close but not the rule — if a check ever slips late, the two-further-checks version is the one that decides.

Giving the tenant a copy

• A tenant already living there must be given a copy within 28 days of each check.
• A new tenant must be given a copy of the latest record before they move in.
• On a let of 28 days or less, the record may be displayed prominently in the property instead.

There is one more alternative, which matters mostly on a room-by-room let. Where there is no gas appliance in any room the tenant occupies — the boiler and hob are in a shared kitchen, say — you may display the record prominently in the property instead, provided it carries a statement that the tenant is entitled to their own copy on request, and an address to ask at. If they ask, they get one as soon as practicable.

Whichever route you use, keep evidence that you used it. The day you need to show a tenant was given the record is not a day you can reconstruct it.

When the tenant will not let the engineer in

Two provisions decide this, and they pull in slightly different directions.

The first says that nothing the tenant does or agrees to do counts towards your duty — a tenant who says they had the boiler looked at themselves has not discharged anything for you. The one exception is access.

The second, regulation 39, says you are not guilty of an offence under regulation 36 if you can show you took all reasonable steps to prevent the breach. The regulation does not say what reasonable steps are, and it is a defence you have to prove rather than a status you are given. Proof comes from a record — dated letters and emails, appointments offered, the engineer's note of an unanswered door — so start keeping one at the first missed appointment, not the third.

Where Tenarize fits

The gas safety certificate is the first item on every tenancy's compliance checklist, and it is one of the items that cannot be ticked without the certificate attached. Record its expiry date and Tenarize raises a notification before it lapses — and, unless you have turned compliance emails off, an email as well, with anything still outstanding repeated in a Monday digest.

Sixty days before the date, an Arrange renewal button picks a gas engineer from your own suppliers, gives you their number and a drafted email, and tracks the visit as a job you can put the invoice on. If the engineer you pick has no Gas Safe registration number on file, or theirs has lapsed, you are told before you book. Each supplier can carry their registration number and its expiry, and Tenarize warns you when one is missing or about to run out. Your tenant sees the booked check in their own maintenance list, labelled as a safety check, with the engineer's name — never what it cost.

When the new certificate goes on, the old one is archived rather than deleted, so the history of which record covered which month stays on the property. That is the same history the two-further-checks rule asks you to keep.

What Tenarize does not do: it does not carry out the check, and it does not look an engineer up on the Gas Safe Register for you — the registration it warns about is the one you recorded. Uploading the new certificate is still your step. And while the certificate is visible in your tenant's portal once it is uploaded, Tenarize does not send it to them, so the 28-day copy is yours to give.

Where to check this yourself

• Landlords' responsibility for gas safety — HSE, the regulator's own guidance for landlords
• The Gas Safe Register — check an engineer's registration before they visit
• Regulation 36, regulation 36A and regulation 39 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 — legislation.gov.uk
• The compliance checklist for letting in England — where gas safety sits among everything else required before a tenancy starts
• Shelter and Citizens Advice — free, independent advice on a specific property

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