Gas Safety Certificate Cost & the Landlord's Legal Duty

Why we're not printing a single national price

Trade estimates commonly quoted for a landlord gas safety check — often summarised as roughly £60–£120, with London and multi-appliance properties toward the top of that range — are widely repeated across comparison sites and tradespeople's own marketing. We haven't been able to trace that range to an HSE or gov.uk published figure, so treat it as informal market colour rather than an official number, and get quotes from a few local Gas Safe registered engineers for your own property rather than budgeting to someone else's average. What follows on this page is the part that is fixed in law: the duty itself, not its price.

The legal duty — Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 36

Regulation 36 is the specific rule landlords operate under. It requires every gas appliance and flue a landlord provides for tenant use to be “checked for safety within 12 months of being installed and at intervals of” no longer than 12 months since the last check — an annual cycle that never lapses, whatever the property's history. The check has to be carried out by someone who is “a member of a class of persons approved” by the Health and Safety Executive — in practice, a Gas Safe registered engineer. The trade shorthand for the resulting paperwork is “CP12” or an LGSR (Landlord Gas Safety Record); the regulation itself doesn't use either term, but they refer to the same document.

What the record has to contain, and how long you keep it

Regulation 36 is specific about the record too. It must be retained for 2 years and include: the date of the check, the property address, the landlord's details, a description and location of each appliance checked, any defects found, any remedial action taken, confirmation the appliance is safe to use, and the engineer's name, signature and HSE registration number.

The 28-day rule — and the new-tenant rule that's stricter

Two separate timing duties apply, and they're easy to mix up. For an existing tenant, the landlord must provide a copy of the current record within 28 days of the check being carried out. For a new tenant, the duty is tighter: a copy of the latest record must be given before they move in, not within 28 days of them moving in. The one exception is a tenancy of 28 days or less, where the record can instead be “prominently displayed” at the property rather than handed over individually. Tenants also have the right to inspect the records on request, with reasonable notice, and a landlord cannot count a tenant's own maintenance efforts toward the landlord's duty — the check has to be arranged and paid for by the landlord.

Penalties for non-compliance

Gas safety is enforced by the Health and Safety Executive, not by a council licensing team, and HSE can prosecute a breach of the 1998 Regulations under health and safety law. Separately, an annual gas safety certificate is also a standing condition of an HMO licence — our HMO licence in England page covers the specific wording gov.uk uses for that condition, and the unlimited fine that can follow running any unlicensed large HMO, which a missing gas certificate can trigger a review of.

Tax: the certificate cost is deductible

A gas safety check is a normal cost of running the letting business, not a capital cost of the property, and is deductible from rental income in the year you pay for it — along with EICR and EPC costs. The full mechanics, including what happens when the check finds a defect that needs remedial work, are on our are gas safety, EICR and EPC certificates tax deductible? page, and you can run the figure through the rental income tax calculator.

legislation.gov.uk: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 36 · HSE: landlords' responsibility for gas safety, read verbatim 11 Sep 2026. No official market price for the check itself is published by HSE or gov.uk — the £60–£120 range referenced above is informal trade colour, not a sourced government figure, and is presented as such.