Landlord gas safety certificates: the CP12 rules explained

Regulation 36 imposes three separate duties, and they are often collapsed into one. They are not the same thing.

1. 01Maintain every gas appliance, fitting and flue in the property that the landlord owns, in a safe condition.
2. 02Check for safety every appliance and flue at intervals of not more than 12 months, by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
3. 03Record and issue — obtain a record of the check and give it to the tenant within the prescribed times.

An annual safety check is not the same as servicing. The check is a legal requirement; servicing to the manufacturer’s instructions is how you meet the separate duty to maintain.

The duties cover appliances the landlord owns. A tenant’s own gas cooker is not the landlord’s appliance, but the installation pipework and the flue serving it usually are, and the connection must still be checked.

The record must be given, not merely made available. Sending it by email is acceptable where the tenant has agreed to receive documents that way; leaving it in a drawer at the property is not.

NoteFailing to give the record within 28 days is a breach in its own right, even if the check was done on time and the appliances are perfectly safe.

In England, a valid gas safety record is also one of the prescribed documents that must have been provided to the tenant before certain possession procedures can be used. That makes the paperwork trail a letting issue as well as a safety one.

Since a 2018 amendment to the regulations, a landlord can have the annual check carried out at any point in the two months before the existing record expires and keep the original expiry date, rather than resetting the clock to the new inspection date.

So a record dated 14 September 2025 expires on 14 September 2026. A check on 20 July 2026 can still carry an expiry of 14 September 2027. Without the provision, checking early each year would drag the renewal date steadily earlier and cost you weeks of cover over time.

Check within two months of expiry and the anniversary date is preserved. Check earlier than that and the twelve months runs from the new check.

The engineer has to record it correctly for this to work. If your records are coming back with the expiry set twelve months from the visit rather than from the anniversary, tell them.

The duty does not go away, but the regulations recognise the problem. You must take all reasonable steps to comply, and you must be able to evidence them. What matters is the paper trail, not the outcome.

1. 01Write to the tenant giving reasonable notice and explaining that the check is a legal safety requirement.
2. 02Offer at least two further appointments, including one outside normal working hours.
3. 03Write again after each missed appointment, keeping copies.
4. 04Consider a formal letter warning that continued refusal may be a breach of the tenancy agreement.
5. 05Take legal advice on access before forcing entry. Do not force entry without it.

NoteThree logged attempts with copies of the letters is the practical benchmark HSE guidance points towards. Two phone calls with no record is not.

Gas safety offences are prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. In the magistrates’ court the maximum is an unlimited fine and up to six months’ imprisonment; in the Crown Court, an unlimited fine and up to two years. Sentencing follows the Health and Safety Offences definitive guideline, which scales fines with turnover and culpability.

The practical exposure is broader than a fine. A landlord without a valid record faces problems with insurance, with possession proceedings, and with any civil claim following an incident. Where a tenant is harmed by carbon monoxide, the absence of a check is close to conclusive on liability.

Separately, the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, as amended in 2022, require a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation containing a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker, in both private and social rented housing, and require alarms to be repaired or replaced once a fault is reported.

Gas safety records attach to the job and the property with typed results rather than a photograph of a paper pad, which means they can be searched and reported on. For firms managing compliance across a portfolio, the Property Compliance module tracks the landlord "Big Six" per property — gas LGSR, EICR, fire risk assessment, legionella, asbestos and lifts — with renewal cycles and an overdue register. It is a £149-a-month bolt-on to any plan.

Being clear about what it does not do: Estimark shows what is overdue when you look at the register, it does not email you before a certificate expires, and it does not submit anything to Gas Safe or a local authority. Appointment windows and "on my way" messaging are a separate Customer Comms bolt-on at £29 a month.

See Estimark for plumbers and heating engineers.