Guide 02
Landlord gas safety, in plain English.
The Landlord Gas Safety Record — still widely called a CP12 — is a twelve-month legal requirement for rented property in England. Here is what it covers, what the deadlines really are, and what to do when a check fails.
If you let a property with gas in it, this is the piece of paper that matters. It is also the job most often remembered late, which is how landlords end up paying whatever the first firm to answer the phone asks for. Solihull Heating carries out landlord safety certificates and gas safety inspections as part of its normal work — and because you are ringing one of two engineers rather than a call centre, you can book it around the tenant properly.
- 01
Every twelve months, without exception
A gas safety check has to be carried out on every gas appliance and flue in a rented property at least every twelve months, by a Gas Safe registered engineer. The clock does not reset because the tenancy changed, and it does not pause because the property was empty for a few months.
- 02
What is actually checked
Each appliance is tested for gas tightness, correct operation, combustion and safe flueing; the pipework is checked; and ventilation is checked — because a boiler in a cupboard with the air bricks blocked by a new fence is a real and common fault. Anything the landlord owns and supplies is in scope. A tenant’s own gas cooker is not the landlord’s appliance, but the pipework and connection to it still are.
- 03
The 28-day and start-of-tenancy rules
A copy of the record has to reach existing tenants within 28 days of the check, and new tenants at the start of the tenancy. For a house in multiple occupation, each household needs one. Landlords must keep copies for at least two years.
- 04
What happens when something fails
If an appliance is found immediately dangerous or at risk, it is turned off and labelled with the tenant’s permission, and you are told exactly what it needs before anything is stripped down. A failed check is not an invoice for a new boiler by default — it is a list of what has to be put right to pass, and a price for doing it.
- 05
A certificate is not a service
This is the distinction that catches most landlords out. A safety check answers one question: is this appliance safe right now. A service is the fuller job that keeps it efficient and keeps the manufacturer’s guarantee alive. Most landlords are better off booking both at the same visit — it is one appointment and one access arrangement with the tenant instead of two.
- 06
Booking around a tenant
The hardest part of the job is rarely the gas. Give the engineer the tenant’s number and the access arrangement up front, and book it a few weeks before the expiry date rather than the week after — a missed appointment eats a whole slot, and a two-engineer firm has a finite number of them.
How to check your engineer, in thirty seconds
Ask for the Gas Safe ID card at the door. The front has a photograph, a licence number and an expiry date; the back lists the specific appliance types that engineer is qualified to work on. Check the number on the Gas Safe Register website. That applies to us exactly as much as it applies to anybody else knocking on your tenant's door — a certificate signed by someone not registered for that appliance type is worth nothing at all.
Certificate due?
Ring with the expiry date and the tenant's access arrangement and it can go in the diary in one call. Mon–Sat, 8am–5pm · Sunday 8am–12pm.