Landlord gas safety check due? One CP12 brief, comparable quotes.

The Landlord Gas Safety Record (still commonly called a CP12, after the old British Gas form number) is the document a Gas Safe registered engineer issues after the annual inspection of all gas appliances, flues, and pipework in a let property. The check covers operational safety of each appliance, gas tightness of the installation, the integrity of flues and ventilation, and the standing and working pressure of the system.

Under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, landlords must arrange this check at intervals of no more than 12 months, must keep records for at least 2 years, and must provide a copy to existing tenants within 28 days of the check and to new tenants before they move in. Failure to comply is a criminal offence and one of the most common reasons for prosecution by the HSE in the rental sector.

The useful quote fields are simple but easy to miss: property postcode, number of gas appliances, appliance types, whether a boiler service should be priced as an add-on, tenant or key-safe access, parking constraints, certificate expiry date, and whether any previous defects need checking.

Putting those details into one brief stops one engineer pricing a boiler-only visit while another prices boiler, hob and gas fire. Same-scope means the appliance list, access assumptions, certificate issue and optional service add-on are the same for every Gas Safe engineer asked to quote.

The CP12 is an inspection only. It tells you whether the appliances are operating safely on the day of the visit. It does not extend the boiler's life, descale the heat exchanger, clean the burner, or replace any consumables. A boiler service is the maintenance work that does those things, and it's typically required to keep the manufacturer's warranty valid.

Most landlords do both at the same visit because the engineer is already on site, the cost saving is meaningful (one callout instead of two), and the boiler service result is appended to the same record. The FixQuotes brief asks every engineer to quote both options — CP12 only, and CP12 plus service — so you can pick on price.

The 12-month clock can be tricky. From 6 April 2018, regulations allow the check to be carried out in the two months before the existing certificate expires without restarting the clock — so a certificate dated 1 March 2026 originally issued on 1 March 2025 still counts as 'within 12 months' even if you've now had two checks in that calendar year.

In practice this means you can plan the check for a tenant-friendly window without losing time. If you're between tenancies, do it in the void; if not, give 24-hour written notice as required by Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.