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Gas Safe and the records customers keep

Anyone working on gas in the UK has to be registered, and the registration is not just a condition of doing the work — it appears on what the customer keeps. Which means the paperwork is part of the job rather than something that follows it.

The record is asked for at the worst moment

Nobody asks for a gas safety record on a quiet Tuesday. It is asked for during a house sale, at the start of a tenancy, after an incident, or by an agent who needs it today. In each of those situations the person asking is under pressure and the answer "I'll have a look for it" is expensive — in goodwill immediately, and sometimes in the work itself.

File it against the property and the appliance

Not against the customer, and not by date. Properties change hands, landlords change agents, tenants come and go, but the boiler stays where it is. A record filed against the address with the appliance identified is findable by the only piece of information the person asking will definitely have.

What makes a record useful later

• The address, unambiguously — flat number included.
• The appliance: make, model, location and serial number.
• What was tested and what the readings were.
• What was found, including anything left unsafe or inoperative, and what was done about it.
• Advice given to the customer or occupier.
• Your registration details and the date.

Quandron produces the Landlord Gas Safety Record (CP12) and the Benchmark commissioning checklist, alongside the electrical certificates for firms that do both. What is worth insisting on regardless of the system is that the record is completed on site rather than reconstructed, because a reading written down later is a remembered reading.

Landlord work is recurring by nature

Rental properties need inspections on a cycle, which makes them the same problem as a service round: the date belongs to the property, the reminder should fire on its own, and what you want to see in the morning is a due list. See working for landlords and agents.

What software can and cannot do

It cannot check your registration — that is between you and the register, and it carries the number onto what you send out because you told it to. What it can do is make sure the record exists, is complete before the engineer leaves, is attached to the right address, and is retrievable in seconds by someone who was not there.

The flagged items are worth money

An inspection produces a list of things noticed and not done: a flue that wants attention, a cylinder past its best, a boiler nearing the end. Against the property, that is next year's quotes from a customer who already lets you in. In a filing cabinet, it is nothing.