Gas safety certificates in London

The duty comes from the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. Every gas appliance and flue in a let property must be checked at intervals of no more than twelve months. The engineer has to be on the Gas Safe Register — since April 2009, when it replaced CORGI, there is no other legitimate route.

Two deadlines catch landlords out. The record has to reach the tenant within 28 days of the check, and new tenants must have it before they move in. Records have to be kept for two years. Missing either is a breach even where the appliances themselves were perfectly safe.

Before 2018, having the check done early reset the clock, so a landlord who booked a fortnight early every year gradually lost weeks off the cycle. The 2018 amendment fixed that. You can now have the safety check carried out up to two months before the current certificate expires and keep the original expiry date.

In practice that means you can book at your convenience inside that window rather than waiting for the last possible week and hoping an engineer is free. For anyone running more than a couple of properties it is the difference between a manageable schedule and a scramble.

Every gas appliance: boiler, hob, cooker, fire, water heater. Each one gets a gas tightness test, a check that it is burning correctly, and a flue flow and spillage test to confirm combustion products are going outside rather than into the room.

We also check that ventilation is adequate and unobstructed, and that emergency control valves and pipework are sound and correctly bonded. Where an appliance fails we classify it, explain what that classification means, and tell you what needs doing to bring it back into use.