Landlord Action is issuing a reminder to buy-to-let landlords of the importance of carrying out annual gas safety checks and a request to tenants to ensure they grant necessary access to landlords to facilitate this.
In support of Gas Safety Week (Monday 12th – Friday 18th September), Landlord Action is keen to highlight a recent survey of 1,100 landlords, which revealed that nearly half of landlords have, at some point, been denied access to carry out checks.
All landlords renting properties with gas appliances have a legal duty to have a gas safety inspection carried out each year by a Gas Safe registered engineer. A copy of the gas safety certificate must then be issued to the tenants.
However, the survey, carried out by Landlord Action, found that 46% of landlords have been denied access to their rental property to carry out routine checks or gas safety inspections, making compliance extremely difficult.
Paul Shamplina, founder of Landlord Action, says: “Gas safety checks are not only a landlord’s legal obligation, but they are also imperative to ensuring the safety of the property and the tenants living there. Of course, sometimes it comes down to when is convenient, but when tenants continually deny access, it becomes a real problem.”
Landlord Action is currently in the process of putting forward a case for introducing a discretionary ground for possession of unreasonably refusing landlords access for inspections. This would help give landlords the necessary authority when requesting access.
Shamplina added: “As the market evolves and the balance of power shifts towards the tenant, landlords are contacting us with increasingly complex legal challenges, which are likely to broaden in the future as the sector reforms. We already offer access injunctions to complete gas safety checks and are currently looking at what other support landlords may need.”
Comments (5)
Been there, done that.
It gets very difficult when the tenant agrees to the appointment but isn’t there when you turn up and happen to have changed the locks too.
Personally, the idea of going completely electric on each rental property is becoming more and more appealing.
It is better for the environment (well, it will be in due course) and the need for annual safety check vanishes.
The only problem is that (even before the cost of living crisis) electricity costs way more per kWh than gas. But that will change. Especially if the government gets round to taxing gas to account for the carbon.
“Tax gas to account for the carbon?” Electric produces more carbon per kWh. Most electric in the UK is actually gas, but you lose 40% efficiency by converting it to electric.
Much more efficient and environmentally friendly to use gas boilers, which is one reason that electric heating produces a worse EPC rating than gas boilers.
Even solar power and wind farms use up a lot of carbon in their production, so take years before they are actually more environmentally friendly, but theoretically in the long-term, if they’re not damaged, they should become a slightly more environmentally friendly solution.
Until there are far more nuclear power plants, or some new technology, there should be gas boilers in houses.
I’m a big fan of Solar power, every house should have it, but it’s not enough energy on its own. Hence why I think more nuclear power stations are the answer. They are also the safest form of power production, killing less people than wind farms and solar panels (because people fall off roofs).
According to National Grid the percentage of losses is about 1.7% over the transmission network and a further 5-8% is lost over local distribution networks. So a total of say perhaps 8% on average across the UK.
More worrying is that electricity generated by gas is only 49.5% efficient, coal 35% efficient and nuclear 40% efficient. Our current electric generation technologies are horrendously wasteful. Source of data Digest of UK Energy Statistics 2017 – also referred to as DUKES2017.
This is why I included (well, it will be in due course).
Modern condensing GCH boilers are typically 90%+ efficient at the point where the water leaves the boiler – but there are “transmission losses” within a property – for example it might take 30 seconds or more for a combi boiler to provide hot water to the tap itself. In the meantime the owner is pouring water down the drain. Then the hot water that is left in the pipe cools down after the tap is turned off.
The initial construction carbon cost of renewable energy sources per MWh of production is quite low in comparison to older generation techniques and by design the ongoing carbon cost is as close to zero as makes no difference.
I am not advocating for the direct removal of gas boilers from everyone’s property right now. Instead I’m advocating for a managed transition to a distributed storage grid (i.e. storage batteries replacing the local transformers that serve every 200 or so properties) and renewable power generation in as many forms as possible with nuclear power used for load balancing. I wouldn’t expect that kind of rollout to take less than 10-15 years.
In the meantime, all those that can convert their properties to use PV solar generated electricity and hot water heated by fluid filled solar panels should be persuaded to do so. Tax cuts, subsidies? I don’t know. But we would also be creating a serious number of jobs which is no bad thing too.
You can have the gas safety check done a month before expiry of the existing certificate and not loose the original 12 month period, just as with vehicle MOT. Councils will not accept expiry periods through negligence of the landlord/agents.
You are covered, if the tenants refuse access but you must prove this WITH DOCUMENTATION of denied access.
It is recommended three letters. 1. Stipulating first appointment, why and reasons for safety concerns and linked to the covenants in the tenancy agreement. 2. Follow-up letter confirming first letter, should they denies access or choose to ignore access request the tenancy may be ended. Keep records of how and when gas engineer attempted contact/access (text messages are very useful). Several attempts is advised. In this letter stipulate a ‘time and date’ appointment access. Your contact details must be given, if tenants wish to rearrange with 7 days. Do not leave it to the gas engineer to do your work chasing tenants that do not co-operate.
You are now running out of time. 3. Final demand reminding them of letter 1 stipulations, ignoring previous correspondence/contact requests if applicable and a ‘last and final’ demand for access on a stipulated ‘time and date’ within next 7 days. Should they not be willing to provide access, they must contact you to explain and a new and final date of their choice before the certificate expires. Consequences for failing to co-operate could lead to a court injunction for breach of the tenancy agreement.
Tip: Contact gas engineers at least 6 weeks before expiry of the gas certificate to help plan their diary for the next month.
Now this is a good comment! Thank you for posting this.