When renting a property out there is a lot to consider and over recent years there have been many new pieces of legislation introduced or laws amended which landlords need to comply with. One key priority for many landlords is safety, the safety of both their tenant and their asset. The focus of this article is on the legal requirements a landlord must comply with when it comes to gas safety in rented properties.
What Regulations are there around Gas Safety?
The main piece of Legislation is the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, which in section 36 give the duties that a landlord must carry out. As a peripheral to these Regulations the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amendment) Regulations 2022 also govern the requirements for smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms in rented properties. These 2022 Regulations amended some of the requirements from the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015. We will cover the main parts of these pieces of law in more detail in this article.
Requirements under the Gas Safety Regulations
The regulations require that any relevant gas fitting or appliance is checked regularly, that the check is carried out by a qualified and competent person, that the check is documented, any remedial work is carried out by a competent person in a reasonable time and that the report is given to or made available to the tenant(s). There is also a requirement that certain gas appliances cannot be installed in bathrooms or bedrooms, but what does all this mean?
Installation Restrictions
Under section 30 of the Regulations no gas appliance can be installed in a bathroom or shower room unless that appliance is a room sealed appliance. Additionally, no gas fire, gas space heater or gas water heater with a heat input of more than 14 kilowatts can be installed in a bedroom unless it is a room sealed appliance. Finally, no gas fires, gas space heaters or gas water heater of 14 kilowatt heat input or less can be installed in bedrooms and no instantaneous water heaters can be installed anywhere unless they are room sealed and have a safety control device to shut the device down before an unsafe quantity of combustion products builds up in the room concerned. The Regulations state that this also covers cupboards in relevant rooms and cupboards, compartments, or adjacent spaces to relevant rooms which have an air vent into the room.
A room sealed appliance is one that has a combustion system which it totally sealed from the room which it is in, this includes taking combustion air from a ventilated and uninhabited space or from the outside and venting any combustion products to the outside of the property.
Relevant Gas Fittings
The Regulations refer to relevant gas fittings and these are defined as any gas appliance and any gas pipework installed in the premises which is being rented out and which is used for residential purposes.
Landlord’s Duties
- Every gas appliance, fitting and flue needs to be checked by a Gas Safe Registered engineer within 12 months of being installed and then at intervals of no more than 12 months after the initial inspection.
- For any new leases any gas appliance, fitting and flue need to have been inspected in the 12 months prior to the commencement of the lease or within 12 months of installation, whichever is the later
- Landlords must keep a record of the inspection which must be retained for a period of two years and given to the tenant within 28 days of the inspection. For new leases the report should be given to the tenant before the start of the lease. If the property is a short term let holiday cottage for example, then the gas safety certificate needs to be displayed prominently in the property.
- Carry out remedial repairs on any defect found in a timely manner and only using a Gas Safe Registered Engineer.
Requirements under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (Amended) 2022 Regulations
These Regulations came into force in October 2022 and put the following requirements on a landlord:
- A functioning smoke alarm has to be installed on every floor where there is living accommodation. This includes bathrooms and kitchens.
- A functioning carbon monoxide detector needs to be installed in every room where there is a fixed combustion appliance other than a gas cooker.
- Each of these alarms and detectors needs to be tested and proven to be working at the start of a new tenancy.
- Any defect raised during a periodic inspection or raised by the tenant needs to be sorted by the landlord as soon as is reasonably practicable.
Being a landlord is a very worthwhile endeavour, but it does come with legal responsibilities, especially when it comes to tenant safety. Compliance with the gas safety regulations and the latest smoke and Carbon Monoxide alarm regulations is a legal requirement and every landlord should ensure that they are compliant.
