Whether you’re planning to buy a house, sell one, or rent it out, you have certain gas safety responsibilities. Gas safety is a big deal. Besides the fact that you can get prosecuted if you don’t fulfil your gas safety responsibilities, not taking care of your gas and heating appliances is a big risk.
They can lead to all sorts of accidents and troubles, and the more you delay them, the worse the problem becomes. Therefore, it’s important to deal with your gas safety responsibilities right away, and the first step to do that is to learn about them.
Landlords
Landlords have the most responsibility when it comes to gas safety. Since they are renting out their property, it falls on them to ensure that it is entirely a safe space to live in. This includes the obvious, that is broken stairs or a leaky roof and more importantly, any malfunctioning or dangerous gas appliances.
Gas safety responsibility for landlords includes making sure that any gas and heating appliances, flues, and fittings that will be used by the tenants are safe, according to The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. This also includes any flues or fittings in a communal area that is not entirely used by just the tenants or the landlord.
Moreover, landlords are responsible for the regular maintenance and repair of these appliances and fittings by a Gas Safety registered gas engineer. These repairs or inspections are usually recorded in the gas safety record. Landlords are legally obligated to get a gas safety certificate every year. They are supposed to provide a copy of this certificate to their tenants within 28 days of getting an inspection or the tenant moving in.
Landlords also have to keep a copy of any certificates for at least two years to show that they have been regularly maintaining all the pipes and flues. If the tenant happens to be subletting part of the property, it is still the responsibility of the original landlord to carry out the gas maintenance and repair every year.
Besides landlords, tenants and home buyers and sellers don’t have any legal obligations per se when it comes to gas safety responsibilities. However, that definitely does not mean these people have a free pass when it comes to gas safety. Even without any legal implications, everyone has certain gas safety responsibilities. Let’s see what they are.
Tenants
As a tenant, you are responsible for any gas and heating appliances that you bring yourself. Any gas and heating appliances, flues, fixtures that the landlord is providing himself comes under his responsibility to ensure that it is safe. However, if you decide to bring in any of your own appliances, you will be solely responsible for them, not the landlord.
Therefore, you will have to carry out regular maintenance and repair of your appliances. You will also have to make sure that you get inspections only from Gas Safety registered engineers as they know precisely what needs to be checked and how. If they alert you of any possible defects in your appliances, you should take the appropriate remedial action right away.
Other than that, whenever you’re moving into a new property, make sure to ask for a copy of the gas safety certificate. If your landlord fails to provide one, you can file a complaint with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). If you detect any problems with any of the appliances provided by the landlord, you must tell them about it as soon as possible so that they can carry out the necessary repairs or maintenance.
Home Buyers
As a home buyer, again, you might not be obligated to performing any gas safety inspections, but we’d highly advise doing so. Think about it. Before buying the house, you must have carefully checked all the rooms, tested the windows and doors, inspected the roof, etc. After all that, would you want your family to live in a house that potentially has a boiler that’s about to explode? Probably not.
Then, the wisest action would be to ask for the gas safety record from the selling agent. If they can’t provide you with one, you must carry out an inspection yourself by hiring a Gas Safety registered engineer. Other than that, sometimes, you might also need to get a gas safety certificate for insurance purposes.
Home Sellers
Similar to home buyers, home sellers might not be legally obligated, but getting a gas safety certificate can make the house easier to sell. Potential buyers might ask for the gas safety record of the house, and it would help if you could show them one. Therefore, even if you’re planning to sell the house, keep up with the regular maintenance and repairs of the gas and heating appliances, flues, and fittings in the house.
Final Thoughts
Dealing with your gas safety responsibilities can seem like a hassle at times. After all, that boiler is working just fine, and you can’t really smell any carbon monoxide anywhere, so what’s the problem? Well, accidents don’t come with a warning. Moreover, especially for landlords, it is their legal obligation to provide a safe space to their tenants, and this includes the gas safety responsibility for landlords. Now that you know what these responsibilities entail, all that’s left to do is to start fulfilling them.
Hold on a minute, though. How do you get all those inspections done and certificates made? You need not look further than Gasify at gasify.co.uk . We have an entire team of Gas Safety registered gas engineers who know everything there is to know about gas and heating appliances. We will do a thorough inspection of your home as well as provide gas safety certificates (as long as everything checks out). So, visit our website to book a session today.
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