Gas Safe Certificates may not say what you thought!

Gas Safe Certificates may not say what you thought!

16:24 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago 18

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We were in the process of letting a property and had been presented with the Landlord’s Gas Safety Certificate. The Landlord’s property has a gas boiler and gas hob and as far as the Landlord was concerned both appliances were covered by a British Gas HomeCare agreement. The Landlord’s Gas Safety Certificate was also provided by British Gas and listed both appliances, however, on closer examination it was only the boiler that had been tested and declared as safe. Gas Safe Certificates may not say what you thought!

The Landlord was not aware that the hob was not included in the British Gas HomeCare agreement. As it was listed on the certificate the Landlord assumed it had been tested.

The inspection details were of no real interest to the Landlord, his interest was in the “PASS” stamp at the bottom of the certificate.

The British Gas Gas Safe Engineer had not pointed out that the hob was not covered in British Gas HomeCare agreement and therefore he had not tested it!

I wonder how many Landlords have not checked or do not understand what has or has not been tested?

Unless you are familiar with the layout of the certificate and understand what should be entered in each of the 14 columns, it is easy to misinterpret the information provided.

Landlords & Tenants; please check your certificates and make sure all the gas appliances in your property are listed and that each individual appliance on that list has been tested and a “YES” has been inserted in the “Appliance Safe” column!

Regards

Rob


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Comments

Rob Crawford

18:07 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

Hi Mike, I did read that, however, where specifically in the register? Lets put some substance behind our claims.

Rob Crawford

18:24 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Mark Lynham" at "16/06/2014 - 17:08":

Hi Mark, the record actually states N/A in all the columns against the gas hob except one column! So to an uninformed landlord, this could be interpreted as "not required"! In actual fact it was because the appliance was not included in the support arrangement. The one column that states "No" is under the "requested to test". So to the informed it is clear that the hob, whilst listed, has not been checked. However, the attached letter states "Here's your Gas Safety Record - everything is fine"! It goes on to say, "so there is nothing to do" and, "we will be in touch in a years time" (which they didn't!). So back to my point, "does your Gas Safe Record/Certificate actually say what you think it does?"

Romain Garcin

18:56 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

At discussed in other threads a landlord only has to get a certificate for the appliances he owns, so a 'landlord gas safety certificate' does not have to cover all the appliances.

Rob Crawford

19:04 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Romain " at "16/06/2014 - 18:56":

Just to clarify: In this case the LL owned the boiler and the hob.

Romain Garcin

20:18 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

Reply to the comment left by "Rob Crawford" at "16/06/2014 - 19:04":

Hi Rob,
Yes, I tried to edit my post to make clear that I was replying to Mike, but it was too late!

In this case it seems like a letdown by British Gas, TBH. If they market a product for landlords with a 'landlord's gas safety certificate' it would seem the minimum to expect that it covers what's required, which I guess is what your client assumed. Useful warning!

Ian Ringrose

21:13 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

And that is way British Gas is not a good option for a lot of Landlords....

All BankersAreBarstewards Smith

21:31 PM, 16th June 2014, About 10 years ago

BG is not a good option for many people....... landlord or otherwise....

Ian Simpson

6:57 AM, 20th June 2014, About 10 years ago

After trwo years and two properties on British Gas Homecare I have given up - the only thing they excelled at was collecting the DD each month - other than that - chocolate toaster material... They refused to repair two boilers, they forced me to pay for powerflushes ( £800 a pop) when another boiler needed parts they forced me to pay up front ( £150 ) and neither the parts nor the engineers turned up. Never saw a Gas safety cert EVER ... Impossible to get through on the 'phone (unless you have half an hour to waste each time ) ... UTTERLY useless - I cannot believe they are still advertising ... I gave up in the end

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