Regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 requires a landlord to have every gas appliance and flue in a let property checked for safety by a Gas Safe registered engineer every twelve months, and to give the tenant a copy of the record.
It is the oldest and simplest of the safety duties, and the one with the sharpest teeth.
The duty, precisely
- Every twelve months. The check, not the certificate's convenience.
- Every appliance and flue you are responsible for — the boiler, the hob, the fire. Tenants' own appliances are outside it, but the flue serving them is not.
- A Gas Safe registered engineer. Nobody else.
- Copy to the tenant within 28 days of the check, and to any new tenant before they occupy.
- Keep records for two years.
The check may be carried out up to two months before the anniversary without losing the original date — so an early check does not shorten the cycle. Waiting does.
What happens the day it lapses
You are committing an offence. Not "at risk of" one; committing it, from the day after the twelve months expire, whether or not anything is wrong with the appliance.
The offence is under section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The penalty on summary conviction is an unlimited fine and up to 12 months' imprisonment; on indictment, an unlimited fine and up to two years.
Not £20,000 — and this matters
Schedule 3A to the 1974 Act still prints a £20,000 summary maximum. That figure was converted to an unlimited fine by section 85 of LASPO 2012 on 12 March 2015, and the conversion did not amend the text. Every source quoting £20,000 is reading the statute correctly and reporting the law wrongly. Full explanation: what is the maximum fine for no gas safety certificate.
The consequences that are not the fine
- Insurance. Most landlord policies require compliance with statutory safety duties. A lapsed CP12 at the moment of a gas incident is the kind of thing insurers decline on.
- Corporate manslaughter and gross negligence. Where a lapse contributes to a death, the charge is not regulatory.
- Licence conditions. A current CP12 is a standard condition of almost every HMO and selective licence, so a lapse breaches the licence as well — a second, separately punishable failure under s.249A.
What the Renters' Rights Act changed here
Nothing about the duty. Twelve months, Gas Safe, copy to tenant — unchanged. What changed is that there is no longer a fixed-term renewal to hang the reminder on, because every tenancy is periodic. The date now sits on its own and nothing prompts you.
England and Wales
The 1998 Regulations apply across Great Britain, so the duty is identical in Wales. Welsh landlords have the additional Rent Smart Wales obligations on top.
Never miss the date. Landlord HQ holds certificate expiries per property and emails at sixty days, thirty and seven. See what it costs.
Information tool, not legal advice.