Gas & Electrical Safety Certificates for Landlords in North West London

Gas and electrical duties side by side

The two duties look alike but differ in almost every detail. Knowing where they differ is what lets you put them on one timetable.

• Who does it: gas, an engineer on the Gas Safe Register; electrical, a qualified and competent electrician
• What is checked: gas, every appliance, fitting and flue you provide; electrical, the fixed installation from the meter tails to the sockets and lights
• How often: gas, at intervals of no more than 12 months; electrical, at least every five years, or sooner if the last report says so
• Early checks: gas, a check in the two months before it is due keeps the original anniversary; electrical, an early inspection simply starts a new five-year period from its own date
• How long to keep the record: gas, until two further checks have been done; electrical, until the next inspection is due or has taken place
• Who enforces it: gas, the Health and Safety Executive, as a criminal matter; electrical, the local council, with civil penalties of up to £40,000 per breach since 1 November 2025
• What a failure means: gas, an unsafe appliance is classed and normally disconnected; electrical, a C1 or C2 code makes the report unsatisfactory, with 28 days for the remedial work

How to bring the two renewal dates together

Use the gas anniversary as the fixed point and move the EICR to meet it. The gas date is the one that recurs every year and has a protected early window. Under regulation 36A, a check done in the two months before the deadline counts as if it were done on the deadline. The electrical report has no such window, but nothing stops you inspecting early. The next one is then due five years from the new date. An example. Your gas record runs out on 20 March and your EICR on 10 June. Book both for early March.

The gas renewal stays on 20 March. The EICR is three months earlier than strictly needed, and its next date becomes March five years on. From then on, every fifth gas check falls in the same week as the electrical inspection, and the tenant gives access once. The cost of aligning is a few months of electrical cycle given up once. In return, you avoid a separate call-out and a second round of access letters in every five-year period. If the last EICR set a shorter interval, such as three years, we align to that instead.

What the tenant must receive from each check

Each record has its own delivery rule, and the deadlines run from different dates. A new tenant must have the latest gas record and the latest EICR before moving in. For existing tenants, the gas record must arrive within 28 days of the check, and the EICR within 28 days of the inspection. When the checks happen weeks apart, you run two 28-day deadlines at once, and it is easy to send one and forget the other. A single visit means one email, with both records attached. Where a room is let for 28 days or less, the gas rules allow the record to be displayed prominently in the property instead.

The electrical rules add two duties landlords often miss. If remedial work was needed, you must give the tenant and the council written confirmation that it is done, with the report, within 28 days of completing it. And you must give a copy of the last report to whoever carries out the next inspection, so keep it where you can find it in five years' time.

All-electric homes, capped meters and tenants' own appliances

The gas duty attaches to the appliances you provide. If the property has no gas supply and no gas appliance, there is no annual gas check, and the EICR is the only one of the two you need. Plenty of flats with electric heating and an electric cooker are in this position. The grey areas are worth a call before you assume:

• A capped gas supply with no appliances connected: no appliance check is due, but keep a note of when and by whom it was capped
• A tenant's own gas cooker: the cooker is theirs to look after, but you keep responsibility for the pipework that serves it, and HSE recommends including any connected flue in your check
• A disused gas fire left in place: if it is still connected, treat it as provided and have it checked, or have it disconnected properly
• An electric shower or storage heaters in a gas-heated home: these are part of the fixed installation, so they come under the EICR, not the gas record

What happens if one passes and the other fails?

Each record stands on its own, so a failure on one does not cancel the other. Send the record that passed to your tenant within its 28 days as normal. On the gas side, an appliance found immediately dangerous is normally disconnected with your permission, and the record says so. We do not repair or replace boilers. If the boiler is the problem, the record goes to you that day so a heating engineer can be booked quickly, because the tenant may be without heating or hot water until it is fixed.

A gas fire or cooker fault is quoted or referred in the same way. On the electrical side, a C1 danger is made safe before we leave. C2 items, and any further investigation the report says is required, must be done within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so. We quote each coded item at a fixed price. Once the work is certified, the written confirmation goes to the tenant and the council within 28 days.

Licensed lets in Harrow, Brent and Barnet

If the property is licensed, the council can ask to see both records, and a gas record can be required every year. Schedule 4 of the Housing Act 2004 makes every HMO and selective licence include a condition that, where gas is supplied, the licence holder produces a gas safety certificate to the council each year. Every licence must also require a declaration, on demand, that the electrical installation is in proper working order and safe. Councils add their own detail. Brent's HMO licence conditions ask for a current gas certificate within 14 days of a request, and a periodic electrical report from the last five years within 28 days of a request, with code 1 and 2 items done within 28 days.

Harrow's selective licensing now covers privately rented houses in Edgware, Roxeth, Greenhill, Marlborough, Wealdstone North and Wealdstone South wards. Barnet's additional HMO licensing runs borough-wide until 27 October 2027. Read your own licence for the exact wording: aligned certificates make each of these requests one search of your inbox.

Uploading both to the landlord register

Both records are going on the national landlord database. GOV.UK's Housing Hub says that when you register you will give a copy of the gas safety record and its issue date if the property has a gas supply, and a copy of the EICR, or an Electrical Installation Certificate, with its expiry date. Under draft regulations still awaiting Parliament's approval, London properties are due to register between 15 July and 14 October 2027, at £65 per property per year.

The register asks for one record's issue date and the other's expiry date, so out-of-step certificates mean more updating over time. Keeping both as PDFs, named by address and date, makes the upload a few minutes' work. We send ours in exactly that form.

How are the two certificates priced together?

Each certificate is a fixed price, driven by its own factors. For gas, it is the number of appliances you provide and how easily the engineer can reach them and the meter. For the EICR, it is the number of circuits, the age of the installation and whether there is more than one consumer unit or an outbuilding supply. Booking them together saves a call-out and a second appointment for the tenant. Any remedial work is quoted separately, item by item, after the checks.

Certificates and defined jobs are a fixed price confirmed before we attend; repairs are charged by the hour, with the rate and an estimate confirmed before we attend.

Gas and electrical checks across North West London

We book combined gas and electrical visits across Harrow, Kenton, Stanmore and Edgware, and in Wembley, Kingsbury, Queensbury, Preston Road, Pinner, Wealdstone, Hatch End, Burnt Oak, Colindale, Mill Hill and Hendon. Saturday slots, 9:00 to 16:30, help with working tenants, since only one access day is needed. Where an agent holds keys for several addresses on the same street or block, we can group the visits into one day and invoice them on the agent's monthly account.

Property Maintenance by area: Maintenance for landlords in Harrow, Maintenance for landlords in Kenton, Maintenance for landlords in Stanmore, Maintenance for landlords in Edgware, Maintenance for landlords in Bushey, Maintenance for landlords in Colindale, Maintenance for landlords in Hendon, Maintenance for landlords in Mill Hill, Maintenance for landlords in Northolt, Maintenance for landlords in Northwood, Maintenance for landlords in Pinner, Maintenance for landlords in Ruislip and Maintenance for landlords in Wembley.

Not sure which certificates apply? Use our landlord certificate checker.

What this booking does not include

We do not service, repair or replace boilers, so a boiler defect found on the gas check is referred to a heating engineer. The EPC, PAT testing, alarms and legionella assessment are not part of this two-certificate booking. They can be added, and the full set is on our landlord certificates page. We do not supply certificates without a visit, or backdate a record.

Why people trust us

• Gas work only by Gas Safe registered engineers, electrical inspection by registered electricians and EPCs by accredited assessors: ask to see the ID card
• A walk-in office on Kenton Lane, not a serviced address
• Remedial items itemised line by line, so you can take the work elsewhere
• A time slot rather than a morning-or-afternoon window
• Work photographed before and after, and reported
• We tell you when you do not need something we sell

We are building a review profile under this name and would rather show you none than borrow someone else's. Ask us for references from landlords and we will put you in touch.

Official sources

• legislation.gov.uk: Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, regulation 36
• legislation.gov.uk: Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, regulation 3
• legislation.gov.uk: SI 2025/1043, amending regulations (maximum penalty raised to £40,000 from 1 November 2025)
• legislation.gov.uk: Housing Act 2004, Schedule 4 (mandatory licence conditions)
• Brent Council: conditions for the mandatory and additional HMO licensing scheme
• GOV.UK Housing Hub: Get ready to register your rental property

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.