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Letting, Landlords & Gas Safety
It’s a landlords responsibility to ensure that all Gas appliances such as pipework, boilers and alliances are working correctly. For rental properties, this is carried out on an annual basis in the form of a gas safety check.
All gas safety checks need to be carried out Gas Safe Registered Engineers to ensure the check is carried out correctly. In some cases the landlord will arrange for the check to be carried out, whereas others allow the letting agent to carry it out.
The Landlords Responsibility
Whenever there are any type of gas appliances in a rented property, it is the responsibility of the landlord to have a gas safety check carried out. Whether a tenant has been living there for years or has just moved in, they need to have a copy of the certificate.
Checks should also be carried out again, 12 months after the initial check. Any landlord that fails to carry one out, may be at risk of losing their Section 21 rights in England as of 1st October 2015.
Stay Gas Safe in Rented Accommodation
Faulty gas appliances and gas pipework, poor gas fittings and blocked chimneys can be life threatening, so its important to make sure that your landlord to arranges annual gas safety checks to make sure that the appliances are safe and fit for use. The checks include…
- Ensuring that products of combustion are being safely removed outside from the flue or chimney.
- Ensuring an appliances is burning the gas properly and that there is an adequate supply of fresh air in order for it to do so.
- Ensuring all safety devices are working properly and shitting an appliance off should a fault occur.
Its in your best interests to let a Gas Safe registered engineer in if they visit your property to carry out a check, don’t forget to ask to see their Gas Safe ID card first. It may be a good idea to check with your landlord if you aren’t expecting an engineer to call.
Gas Safety Records
When a registered engineer carries out a gas safety check in your home, they’ll record all of the checks they carry out on a form. This is the Gas Safety Record and it should list all of the appliances and fittings they’ve checked. If you’re renting a property from a private landlord, the council, a housing association or any other landlord, they should provide you with a copy of the latest record to new tenants on the start of the tenancy. If you’re not in possession of a valid record for your current property, you can ask your landlord to provide this. If they fail to do so, you should report them. Failure to follow gas safety requirements is a criminal offence and the HSE has the power to issue a formal caution and may prosecute your landlord.
For more information, contact us today
Should you require any more information, feel free to contact our team today!