Housing standards

Gas safety

Information for landlords

As a landlord who lets a property equipped with gas appliances, you have three main legal duties towards your tenants:

• Ensure the maintenance of pipework, appliance and chimney/flues. This includes servicing
• Organise annual gas safety checks on appliances and flues by a qualified gas safe registered engineer
• Provide a record of the annual gas safety check to your tenants

If you let a property for a short period of time (eg a holiday home for a week) you still have gas safety responsibilities.

Visit the Gas Safe Register website for more details.

Information for tenants and owner/occupiers

Faulty gas appliances or pipework, or blocked chimneys can be life-threatening.

If you are a tenant of a rented property, your landlord must arrange gas safety checks annually. You should be provided with a copy of the record within 28 days of inspection if you already live there, and you should be shown the latest record when you move in.

If you are a homeowner and a Gas Safe registered engineer installs a heat-producing gas appliance in your property you should be sent a Building Regulations Compliance Certificate.

Find a registered Gas Safe business

If you need gas work done in your home, use the Gas Safe Register search tool to find a registered business. Remember to check their ID before the work is carried out.

Electrical safety

Find information on this page about landlord responsibility for electrical safety and the Council's powers to enforce.

Inspection every five years

Landlords must ensure the fixed electrical installations in their properties are inspected and tested at least every 5 years by a competent electrician.

The initial inspections need to be carried out before any new tenancy is granted from 1 July 2020, and 1 April 2021 for existing tenancies.

Tenants must be provided with an electrical safety report

Landlords are required to provide their tenants with electrical safety reports: in the case of new tenants, before they move in; to existing tenants within 28 days of receiving it; and to any prospective tenant within 28 days of their request to view the report.

Landlords failing to provide tenants with an electrical safety report at the start of their tenancies will be in breach of the regulations and may face a civil penalty of up to a maximum of £30,000, with the potential for multiple penalties to be imposed for a continuing failure.

Landlords: What to do if you receive an Unsatisfactory Report from an electrician

If a landlord or letting agent receives an Unsatisfactory Report from an electrician, they have 28 days to fix the problem and email us proving that the problem is fixed.

Please email the Unsatisfactory Report and the subsequent Satisfactory Report or certificate proving the works are complete to ehl@horsham.gov.ukwithin 28 days.

If the work is not carried out in time, then the Council has the power to carry out the required works themselves (on providing prior written notice to the landlord) and recover their costs from the landlord.

Our enforcement powers

The Council has the power to demand sight of the report and the landlord must provide this within 7 days of the request. Failure to do so could result in a penalty charge.

If the Council has reasonable grounds to believe that the landlord is in breach of the Regulations, it also has the power to serve a remedial notice on the landlord to compel them to comply with the Regulations.