Where and How to Display Gas Safety Certificates in London Rental Properties

The Legal Requirement to Provide Gas Safety Records to Tenants

Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, London landlords are required to provide a copy of the current Gas Safety Record to each tenant occupying the property. The requirement applies to both new and existing tenancies. For a new tenant starting a tenancy, the Gas Safety Record must be provided before the tenant occupies the property. For an existing tenant whose tenancy continues, the landlord must provide the new Gas Safety Record within 28 days of the annual gas safety check being carried out.

It is important to note that the Regulations require the landlord to provide the record, not merely to make it available on request. A landlord who does not proactively provide the record to the tenant within the required timeframe is in breach of the Regulations regardless of whether the tenant has asked for it. The consequences of non-compliance include a criminal prosecution and, more practically, the loss of the right to serve a Section 21 notice to recover possession of the property until the record has been provided.

Physical Display Versus Written Provision

A common misconception among London landlords is that the Gas Safety Record must be displayed in the property, for example by fixing a copy to a noticeboard or leaving a copy in a property information folder. The Regulations do not require physical display: they require provision of a copy of the record to the tenant. The copy may be provided in physical paper form or in electronic form, provided that the tenant has agreed to receive documents electronically and has the means to access and store the document.

Where a landlord provides the record in electronic form, for example by email, they should retain evidence of the provision including the date of sending and the email address to which the document was sent. If a tenant subsequently disputes that they received the record, this evidence will be important. For London property managers operating multiple properties, a document management system that automatically records the date and method of provision for each compliance document at each property provides a reliable audit trail.

Providing Records to Multiple Tenants in a Shared Property

In a London house in multiple occupation or shared house where there are multiple tenants on the same or separate tenancy agreements, the Gas Safety Record must be provided to each tenant individually. Providing the record to one tenant and not the others does not satisfy the Regulations. Where tenants in a shared house have individual fixed-term assured shorthold tenancy agreements, each tenant should receive their own copy of the record. Where the property is let on a joint tenancy agreement, the record should be provided to all named tenants.

London landlords who manage HMOs with multiple tenants and high turnover should ensure that their compliance management system records the Gas Safety Record provision event for each individual tenant, not just for the property address. If a new tenant moves into a room during the year, between annual gas safety checks, the landlord must provide that new tenant with the most recent Gas Safety Record before they occupy the room, even if that record was issued several months earlier.

Providing Records After Change of Tenancy

When a tenancy ends and a new tenant takes up occupation of a London rental property, the new tenant must receive a copy of the current Gas Safety Record before moving in. If the current Gas Safety Record is approaching its annual renewal date, it is good practice to carry out the new annual gas safety check before the new tenancy begins, so that the incoming tenant receives a fresh record. Prestige Engineers coordinate with London landlords and property managers to schedule gas safety checks to align with planned tenancy changeovers, reducing the risk of compliance gaps at the start of a new tenancy.