Landlords must ensure that there is a smoke alarm on every storey.
Private landlords in England and Wales must also ensure that there is a CO alarm in every room with a solid fuel appliance see Law on CO Alarms.
Landlords must by law ensure that their gas appliances and their flues are maintained in a safe condition [Reg. 35 The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regs. 1998].
Landlords must also have their gas appliances checked every year by a registered installer (Regs as above, Reg. 36).
There is some confusion amongst landlords, who assume that a safety check is a service. This is unhelpful and CO-Gas Safety has recommended that the law be amended so that the safety check is either a service according to manufacturers’ instructions or at least a test of the flue gasses. Please see our suggested amendments to the Energy Bill. However our amendments were largely ignored. Pimlico Plumbers supports the charity in this and British Gas does not undertake safety checks without a service contract.
We would really appreciate the support of others in this respect. If you wish to support this initiative please email office@co-gassafety.co.uk
and mark it ‘Support change in the law on landlords and CO’.
Since this was written, support has increased for changing the law.
List of those who support our campaign to change the law
Paragas, John Lucas.
Pimlico Plumbers, (Charlie Mullins).
The Dominic Rodgers Trust, (Stacey Rodgers).
The Katie Haines Memorial Trust,(Gordon & Avril Samuel).
Holiday Travel Watch, (Frank Brehany, Consumer Champion).
The National Landlords’ Association, (Richard Price & Clive Norris).
The Gas Industry Safety Group (Chris Bielby).
The Gas Safety Trust (Chris Bielby).
The All Party Parliamentary Carbon Monoxide Group (APPCOG).
IGEM (Ian McCluskey).
I have also had an article published about this in the New Law Journal 23rd March 2018 at page 22.
So why hasn’t there been any action particularly from APPCOG?
Please note that at the moment this means the business is registered NOT the individual fitter so ask about training. The individual engineer is listed by the business and the business sends these names to the Gas Safe Register. The individual must have a certificate of competence and must be trained to work on that particular class of appliances (fires, boilers etc.). You can check the ID number and the name of the individual with the Gas Safe Register (see http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/ ) and we suggest you do this before you allow the engineer to start the job.
Landlords must also have gas flues and chimneys checked. The duty is on landlords to ensure that tenants and prospective tenants are given a copy of the record of these checks on gas appliances and their flues, (Gas Regs. 1996 NO. 2541, in force 31.10.96 – now see Gas Regs. 1998 No. 2451 Reg. 36*).
You should not have to ask for a copy of the safety check. The landlord is under a legal obligation to give you a copy of the safety check. If he doesn’t please ask and show him this.
The lack of adequate expertise of the individual gas fitters is alarming. A Birmingham survey, undertaken by CORGI itself found that one third of 143 appliances, given safety certificates by CORGI gas installers and then checked later by CORGI were found to have defects. The public must be informed of four preventative measure not one.
For a helpful video from the National Landlords Association at http://www.landlords.org.uk/, please see
Updated April 2019.