The Gas Safety Regulations 2018
This amendment to the 1998 regulation changes the schedule on which gas safety checks are carried out. The 1998 previous regulations required the checks for safety within 12 months of installation and then within 12 months. This then meant that the check got a little earlier every year and landlords carried out these checks as late as possible in order to maximise the time the record lasted.
These regulations introduce an ‘MOT’ style safety check rule where the new gas safety check can be done at any time in the last 2 months of the current safety check. Provided the last 2 safety checks have ben done on time, the new record issued will run for 12 months from the date of expiry of the current record, not 12 months from the date the check was done. This will ultimately mean the new gas safety checks will last for between 12 and 14 months depending on when the check is carried out each year.
The aim of offering this increased flexibility is to reduce the number of checks which miss the date they have to be redone by, without significantly reducing the risk to the occupiers of the property.
In order for this to work, there have been a couple of technical changes. They have changed the rules and for the first annual appliance check it can now be, on only one occasion, checked after 14 months if this brings the check in line with the main property checking date.
The second change is that rather than keeping a gas safety record for 2 years, it now has to be kept until 2 further records have been obtained.
These changes come into force for gas safety checks done on or after 6 April 2018.
