Landlord Gas Safety Certificates

Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire & Cambridgeshire

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Landlord gas safety checks and certificates across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire, carried out by Gas Safe registered engineers. One property or a portfolio, with the record issued and sent the same day. Call 01462 506 374 or book online.

Most of the pages you will read on this subject are out of date, because the law changed twice in the last twelve months. This one is current as of August 2026 and it says so where things are still moving. It is general information rather than legal advice, and if your situation is unusual you should take proper advice on it.

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What the law actually requires

The duty sits in regulation 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. In plain terms, if you let a property with gas in it you must:

A CP12 covers every gas appliance and every flue in the property.

Keep every gas appliance and the flue serving it in a safe condition. This is a continuing duty and it is separate from the annual check.
Have each appliance and flue checked for safety within twelve months of installation and at intervals of no more than twelve months after that.
Use a Gas Safe registered engineer, or an employee of one. Nobody else may carry out the check.
Give an existing tenant a copy of the record within twenty-eight days of the check.
Give a new tenant a copy before they occupy the property.
Keep the record until there have been two further checks.

On a new tenancy the check must have been carried out in the twelve months before the lease starts, or within twelve months of the appliance being installed, whichever is the later of the two.

One correction worth making, because most sites still get it wrong

The old rule was to keep the record for two years. It has not been two years since 2018. The wording now is until there have been two further checks. In practice that is usually about two years, but it is counted in checks, not in calendar time, and if you have skipped or moved a check the two are not the same thing.

And “CP12” is not the legal name

CP12 was a CORGI form number and CORGI stopped being the gas registration body in 2009. The regulations simply call it a record. Gas Safe Register calls it a Landlord Gas Safety Record. Everybody in the trade still says CP12 and we will too, but if a letting agent tells you a CP12 is a different thing from an LGSR, it is not.

What goes on the record

Nine things, all set by the regulations: the date of the check, the address of the property, the landlord’s name and address or the agent’s, a description and location of every appliance and flue checked, any safety defect found, any remedial action taken, confirmation of the checks carried out, the engineer’s name and signature, and the engineer’s Gas Safe registration number. Ours is 956889.

If a record you have been given is missing any of those, it is not a compliant record.

The two month rule, and the grace period that does not exist

This one is worth understanding properly because it is the single most useful thing in the regulations for a landlord, and because a lot of what is written about it online is wrong.

You may do the check up to two months early without losing your date. If a check is completed in the two months ending on the deadline date, the law treats it as having been carried out on the deadline date itself. So a certificate expiring on 30 November can be renewed any time from 1 October and the next deadline stays on 30 November. You do not lose the six weeks. Do it earlier than two months before, and the anniversary resets to twelve months from the actual date, and you quietly give away the difference every year.

There is no general grace period. You will see “gas safety grace period” written all over the internet. The only lawful late check is a narrow discretion that lets you go up to two months past the deadline, and it can be used only once per appliance, and only in order to align that appliance’s deadline with another appliance’s deadline in the same property. If the property has one appliance there is nothing to align it to and the discretion is not available at all. It is a housekeeping tool for a property with a boiler and a gas fire on different dates. It is not a two month cushion.

Section 21 has gone, and what that changes

This is where nearly every competitor page you will find is now wrong.

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent in October 2025 and the main tenancy provisions commenced on 1 May 2026. Section 21 no fault possession has been abolished. Every existing assured shorthold tenancy converted to an assured periodic tenancy on that date, no new ASTs can be created, and any Section 21 notice served before 1 May 2026 expired on 31 July 2026 if proceedings had not already started.

For years the strongest argument for keeping your gas safety records straight was that a missing record permanently blocked a Section 21 notice. The Court of Appeal confirmed in April 2026, one day before abolition, that failing to give a tenant the record of the check carried out before they first moved in was an irremediable bar. That was the position for a long time and it caught a lot of landlords.

It no longer applies, and we are not going to pretend otherwise to make a point. Possession now runs through Section 8 on specified grounds, and the prescribed requirements bar that was attached to Section 21 has no Section 8 equivalent. A missing gas safety record does not, on its own, stop you obtaining possession.

So why still take it seriously? Because the real consequences never depended on Section 21 in the first place:

It is a criminal offence. Breach of regulation 36 is prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and carries an unlimited fine and up to two years’ imprisonment.
The HSE does prosecute landlords, and courts do impose custody. In September 2024 a landlord in Kent received a twenty-six week suspended sentence, a four month electronically monitored curfew and costs, for failing to maintain gas fittings and failing to have them checked. In June 2026 a handyman who falsely claimed to be Gas Safe registered received a twenty-six week suspended sentence for illegal gas work that caused a leak.
Your insurance. A landlord policy will normally require compliance with statutory obligations. A gas incident in a property with no valid record is the kind of claim that gets refused.
The PRS Database. This is the one to plan for. Rolling out by area from late 2026, landlords will be required to register properties and upload safety information including gas safety certificates, electrical certificates and EPCs. Compliance is about to become visible and searchable rather than something nobody checks until there is a problem.

The honest position is that the legal jeopardy moved rather than disappeared, and that the paperwork is about to get a lot more public.

Your appliance or the tenant’s?

A common source of confusion, and it usually comes up over a cooker.

Any gas appliance you own and provide for the tenant’s use is fully your responsibility. If the tenant brought their own appliance, typically a gas cooker, you are not required to safety check the appliance itself. You remain responsible for the installation pipework serving it, the connection point and bayonet, the isolation valve, and any flue connected to it.

The HSE also recommends including all flues connected to gas appliances in the check even where the appliance is not yours, and we agree with that. If our engineer finds a tenant owned appliance in a dangerous condition we will make it safe and tell you, because your general duty to prevent risk of injury does not stop at the appliance’s ownership.

Carbon monoxide alarms, which caught a lot of landlords out

Worth checking while we are there, because the rule changed in October 2022 and a lot of properties are still non compliant.

You must have a smoke alarm on every storey used as living accommodation, and a carbon monoxide alarm in any room used as living accommodation that contains a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker.

Before October 2022 the CO trigger was solid fuel only. Now it includes gas boilers, gas fires and gas water heaters. If your boiler sits in a kitchen, a bathroom or a cupboard within a room used as living accommodation, that room needs a CO alarm and a great many do not have one. A tenant’s own gas cooker still does not trigger it.

You must also check the alarms work on the day a new tenancy begins, and repair or replace any alarm reported faulty as soon as reasonably practicable. The local authority can impose a penalty of up to £5,000. We check alarms as part of every visit and can supply and fit compliant ones while we are there.

Legionella, and what you are actually being sold

We would rather lose this sale than mislead you on it.

There is no landlord legionella regulation. The duty comes from general health and safety law, and the HSE is unusually direct about what it means. Its own words: most landlords can assess the risk themselves and do not need to be professionally trained or accredited, health and safety law does not require landlords to obtain or produce a legionella test certificate, and testing or sampling is not usually required for domestic hot and cold water systems.

If somebody is selling you an annual legionella certificate for a two bedroom flat with a combi boiler, they are selling you something the law does not ask for. Some letting agents insist on one contractually, which is their commercial condition rather than a legal requirement, and it is worth knowing which of the two you are complying with.

What genuinely helps is simple: flush the system through before letting, store hot water at 60°C, and remove redundant pipework where dead legs have been left behind. A fuller assessment is justified where there is stored hot water, a communal tank in an HMO, long void periods or vulnerable occupants. We will tell you which of those you are.

HMOs

Everything above applies, plus more. A licensed HMO must send the council an updated gas safety certificate every year, which is a proactive duty rather than producing one on request. The 2006 HMO management regulations separately require the fixed electrical installation to be inspected at intervals of no more than five years, with the certificate supplied to the authority within seven days of a written request. That five year electrical duty predates the 2020 EICR regulations and runs alongside them, so an HMO is caught by both.

Additional and selective licensing schemes vary considerably between councils across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire, so check your own authority rather than assuming.

A check is not a service

The HSE puts it plainly: do not assume an annual service includes the points required by a safety check. They are different scopes. The check confirms the appliance is safe. The service cleans, inspects and maintains it so it keeps working and the manufacturer’s guarantee stays valid.

Most landlords want both, and having both done on the same visit is cheaper than two. We will quote them separately so you can see what you are paying for rather than bundling them and calling it a certificate.

How we work with landlords

Reminders before the deadline rather than after it, so the two month rule works in your favour instead of against it. The record issued and emailed the same day. Direct access arrangements with tenants so you are not the one chasing. Portfolio scheduling, so ten properties are not ten separate phone calls. And an engineer who will tell you when something is fine, rather than finding work on every visit.

Book a landlord gas safety check

Call 01462 506 374 or send us the property details and we will come back with a price and a date. One property or a portfolio, across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. Gas Safe registered, number 956889.

Frequently asked questions

How often does a landlord gas safety check have to be done?

Every twelve months, on every gas appliance and flue in the property. You can have it done up to two months before the expiry date without losing the original anniversary, which is what stops the date creeping forward every year.

What is a CP12?

It is the common name for the landlord gas safety record. It lists the appliances checked, the results, any defects found and what was done about them, and it carries the engineer Gas Safe details.

When does the tenant get a copy?

Within 28 days of the check for an existing tenant, and at the start of the tenancy for a new one. You keep copies for two years.

Is a gas safety check the same as a boiler service?

No, and this is the one people get wrong. The safety check confirms the appliance is safe. A service is a clean and a performance check, and it is what the manufacturer warranty usually requires. Most landlords are better off having both done in the same visit.

What if the tenant will not let me in?

You have to show you took reasonable steps. That means written requests, a record of the attempts, and following the access procedure in the tenancy agreement. Keep the paper trail, because it is the evidence that matters if the date lapses.

What happens if an appliance fails?

Areas we cover

We issue landlord gas safety certificates across our whole coverage area.

We work across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire from our base in Stevenage. If your village is not listed, ring 01462 506374 and we will tell you honestly whether we reach you.

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