Gas Safety Certificate & EICR Explained: What Every UK Landlord Needs in 2026

If you only remember two certificates as a landlord, make it these two: the Gas Safety Certificate and the EICR. They're the backbone of UK rental compliance, and they're also the two most commonly missed.

Gas Safety Certificate (CP12)

If your rental property has any gas appliances — a boiler, a gas hob, a fire — you legally need a valid Gas Safety Record. It has to be:

• Carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer
• Renewed every 12 months
• Given to tenants within 28 days of the check, or before they move in for new tenancies

Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR)

An EICR checks the property's electrical wiring and fixed installations are safe. Since 2020, this has been a legal requirement for all private rented properties in England. Key facts:

• Valid for 5 years
• Must be carried out by a qualified, registered electrician
• A copy must go to tenants within 28 days of the inspection, and to your local council within 7 days if requested

What happens if you don't have one

Local councils can issue remedial notices, and non-compliance can lead to fines of up to £30,000 per breach. Beyond the financial risk, an out-of-date certificate can also block you from serving a valid Section 21 eviction notice — a detail that catches a lot of landlords out at the worst possible moment.

The renewal trap

Because these two certificates run on different cycles — one year for gas, five years for electrics — it's genuinely easy to lose track, especially once you own more than one property. A missed EICR renewal five years down the line is an easy thing to forget when it only comes around once every half-decade.

KeepCert exists precisely for this problem: it tracks every certificate's expiry date in one place and reminds you well before renewal is due, so a five-year gap never turns into a five-year-and-one-day gap.