Gas safety check

Jess8876

Hello

Hoping for some advice please

I am a first time buyer buying a property which is currently being rented out. The tenants are leaving soon and will be exchanging after that.

The latest gas safety check is from August 2018, the up to date one hasn’t been provided from the seller. As it is a legal requirement for the landlord to have the yearly certificate is this something I can insist upon? The estate agent rang me to say as the tenants are moving out soon the seller won’t get it done. This doesn’t seem right but as I’m not the tenant I'm not sure if I can do anything about it. I know that a buyer doesn’t have to provide a gas safety check but as the property is being rented I expected there to be one so did not arrange my own.

If a check is done either by me or the seller and there are issues who is responsible for fixing them?

Thanks

Davesnave

You cannot 'insist' on anything to do with the contract the landlord has with their tenant, so if you want a gas safety check, it's up to you to arrange one.

If issues are revealed, it's the same as any other defect discovered before exchange of contracts: i.e. a matter for negotiation.

You won't be exchanging contracts before the tenants leave. Just as a landlord might bend the rules regarding their responsibilities, so sometimes tenants do similarly when it comes to moving out on time!

eddddy

Jess8876 wrote: »

If a check is done either by me or the seller and there are issues who is responsible for fixing them?

You can arrange a gas safety check for the property, if you want. It normally costs about £40 or £50.

You might want to go a step further, and ask the gas engineer to give you a report on the condition of the boiler / heating system at the same time.

If there are issues, nobody is 'responsible' for fixing them. It's for the buyer and seller to negotiate/agree what should happen.

(An 'issue' could just be a wire that's come loose, that takes seconds to fix. Or it be something that requires a new boiler to be fitted.)

But if the installation is dangerous, here's info on what the gas engineer will do: https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/help-and-advice/gas-safety-in-the-home/warning-labels/


With a tenanted property, there is the extra problem that access for the gas engineer has to be agreed with the tenant. If the tenant is difficult (e.g. because they're angry that they're being evicted because of the sale), they may be uncooperative.

macman

LL is required to do an annual gas safety check. It doesn't matter if the tenancy is ending soon, so if it has expired the LL is committing an offence. However this is between him, his tenants and HSE, no concern of yours, since you haven't exchanged yet.
PS: if the GSC has not been supplied, then that would invalidate an S21 notice, so it's possible that the tenants may not be leaving as soon as you think...you might point that out to the vendor.