Advice

Landlord gas safety certificates: what you need, when, and what happens if it lapses

If you let a property with any gas appliance in it, you need a gas safety record, commonly called a CP12, renewed every twelve months by a Gas Safe registered engineer.

What has to be checked

Every gas appliance you own in the property, plus the pipework and the flues. If the tenant brought their own gas cooker, the appliance itself is theirs but the pipework and the connection to it are still yours.

The timing detail that catches people out

You can have the check done up to two months before the current one expires without losing the original date. So a certificate expiring 1 October can be renewed any time from 1 August and the new one still runs to 1 October the following year. There is no reason to leave it to the last week, and leaving it to the last week is how people end up with a gap.

Getting it to the tenant

• Existing tenants: a copy within 28 days of the check.
• New tenants: a copy before they move in.
• Keep records for at least two years.

If it lapses

It is a criminal offence rather than a civil one, carrying an unlimited fine and up to six months imprisonment in serious cases. More commonly it invalidates your landlord insurance and blocks a Section 21 notice, which is the one that actually costs people money.

We run a renewal calendar for the landlords we work with and book the tenants directly, so nobody has to chase anybody. Certificates are £84, or £64 each where there are three or more properties.