Gas Safety Regulations 2018

From April 2018 there are proposed changes in the regulations for landlord gas safety.

Currently if the property is supplied with gas, a landlord has the responsibility to ensure the gas appliances are safe and checked by a qualified GasSafe registered engineer. The gas engineer will issue a gas safety certificate confirming the appliances have been tested and are safe to use. It is then the responsibility of the landlord to ensure there is an annual gas safety check.

There is often an issue of timing and validity of the gas safety certificate has caused concern for many landlords and tenants. It can be a challenge to co-ordinate the availability of an engineer and a tenant as well as trying to keep the appointment as close to the renewal date as possible in order to avoid any ‘wasted’ days where the existing and the new certificate overlap. If the gas safety certificate is due to expire on the 28^th February and the only available appointment with an engineer is the 13^th February. This means that the landlord has lost in effect 2 weeks of the original certificate.

The proposed changes, which do not relax regulatory requirements or reduce safety standards, is to introduce a degree of flexibility to the timing of landlords’ annual gas safety checks.

A new MOT-style certificate means that landlords can carry out the annual gas safety check in the two months before the due date and retain the existing expiry date.

So, if your gas safety check is due on the 28^th February but it is carried out on the 13^th February, the new certificate will retain the 28^th February expiry date and there will be no foreshortening of the inspection period.

This will also make it far simpler to keep track of the renewal date going forward as it will always be the same date!

This also avoids landlords having to wait until the last minute and not gaining access, or having to shorten the annual cycle to comply with the law.

Subject to Parliament approval (which seems likely), the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 will come into force on 6 April 2018.

The current legislation will continue to apply up to and including 5 April 2018, along with the Approved Code of Practice and guidance supporting it.

The HSE have published a draft copy of the new approved code of practice which is available to download here.

This is all organised for you if Mint Homes manages your property to ensure the regulations are upheld and seamlessly applied.