Certificates & safety
What is a gas safety record (CP12)?
A gas safety record, often called a CP12, is the document produced when a Gas Safe registered engineer checks the gas appliances and flues in a rented property. Landlords must arrange these checks and give tenants a copy.
Use this diagram+
Free to use on your own site, in training material or in a handout, as long as the credit link stays on it. Paste this where you want the diagram to appear.
<figure>
<img src="https://propertyoptix.co.uk/glossary/gas-safety-record/diagram.svg" alt="gas safety record — diagram from PropertyOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://propertyoptix.co.uk/glossary/gas-safety-record">What is a gas safety record (CP12)?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://propertyoptix.co.uk">PropertyOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>Two duties run together and are often confused: having the check carried out, and giving the record to the tenant. Doing the first without the second leaves the obligation incomplete, and it is the second that is easiest to prove was missed.
The check must be carried out by an engineer on the Gas Safe Register, and the register is public. A landlord relying on a contractor's assurance rather than the register is relying on the wrong thing.
It has consequences beyond safety. Failure to provide the record to the tenant can affect the validity of a possession notice, which turns a paperwork lapse into a several-month problem at exactly the point a landlord needs the property back.
What goes wrong in practice
- The check done on time but the record never given to the tenant, or no evidence that it was.
- New tenants not given the current record at the start of the tenancy.
- No record kept of when and how the document was served.
- Appliances the tenant owns assumed to be out of scope without checking the position.