Your landlord hasn't given you a gas safety certificate. Maybe you've asked once, twice, three times. Maybe you did not know you were supposed to receive one at all. Either way, this is a legal breach, and it is a serious one, because gas safety is about the risk of a leak, a fire, or carbon monoxide.
Every landlord letting a property with gas appliances must have them checked every year by a Gas Safe registered engineer and give you a copy of the record, often called a CP12, within 28 days of the check, or before you move in. That is a statutory duty under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, and breaking it is a criminal offence.
Being clear helps here, because there is a lot of confusing advice online. There is no special "gas certificate compensation" payout you simply apply for. What you have instead are real, effective routes: reporting the breach to the regulators who can act on it, and, where the gas installation is unsafe or in disrepair, a claim for compensation through the county court. This guide walks through each one.
What your landlord must do on gas safety
The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 set three duties every landlord with gas in the property must meet. All gas appliances and flues must be inspected every year by a Gas Safe registered engineer. A gas safety record must be produced after each check. And a copy must reach you within 28 days of the inspection, or before your tenancy begins if you are moving in for the first time.
Put plainly: if you have lived in the property for more than 28 days and have never seen a gas safety record, your landlord is already in breach.
The record must show the inspection date, the address, the engineer's Gas Safe registration number, each appliance checked, and the result. An undated or incomplete document does not satisfy the duty. Neither does an email saying "it's been done" with nothing attached. Your landlord must also keep a copy of each record for at least two years.
What can a landlord be fined for a missing gas safety check?
Gas safety is enforced as a criminal matter, not through a tidy fixed fine. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigates and prosecutes landlords who fail to keep up gas safety checks. On conviction, the penalty is an unlimited fine and, in the most serious cases, up to two years in prison. Because a gas fault can kill, the courts treat these cases seriously.
Your local council has a separate power. A dangerous or uninspected gas installation can be a Category 1 hazard under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (Housing Act 2004). If the council's environmental health team inspects and finds one, it can order your landlord to put it right, and stop the property being let until they do.
You will see websites quote a neat "civil fine" figure for a missing gas certificate. Treat those with caution. Gas safety breaches are prosecuted by the HSE and enforced by councils through hazard notices. They do not come with an automatic set penalty paid to you.
Who do you report a landlord gas safety breach to?
Two reports carry weight, and you can make both.
Report it to the Health and Safety Executive. The HSE runs a gas safety line on 0800 300 363, and you can report a landlord who is not carrying out gas safety checks. This is the regulator with the power to prosecute.
Report it to your local council's environmental health team. They can inspect under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System and, if the gas installation is a serious hazard, serve a notice requiring your landlord to fix it. A council record also becomes useful evidence if you later bring a claim.
Before either report, gather what you can. Check your email and paperwork for any gas safety record you were given. Write to your landlord asking for the current certificate and the date of the last inspection, by email so you have a timestamp. Their reply, or their silence, is evidence. If you are worried a specific appliance is unsafe right now, or you smell gas, call the National Gas Emergency line on 0800 111 999 first.
Can you claim compensation for an unsafe gas installation?
Here is the honest position, because it is where most online guides get it wrong.
A missing gas safety certificate is not, by itself, one of the offences that lets you apply for a rent repayment order. The offences that qualify are a closed list in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, and gas safety is not on it. So do not expect to file a tribunal form and recover months of rent purely because a certificate was late.
What you can claim for is disrepair. Your landlord has to keep gas installations in repair and proper working order under section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and a property with an unsafe or unchecked gas supply can be unfit to live in under the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Act 2018. If a defective gas installation has caused you loss, damage, or a real risk to your health, you can bring a claim in the county court for compensation. Our guide to landlord disrepair claims walks through what that claim is worth and how to bring it, and claiming under the Fitness for Human Habitation Act covers the unfitness route.
A rent repayment order can still come into play, but only through a specific chain. If the council serves an improvement notice or prohibition order about the gas hazard and your landlord fails to comply with it, that failure is a qualifying offence, and an order can then return up to 2 years of rent for offences committed on or after 1 May 2026. Our guide on which grounds qualify for a Rent Repayment Order explains the full list.
One older piece of advice no longer applies. A missing gas certificate used to block a landlord's Section 21 eviction. Section 21 was abolished on 1 May 2026, so that particular lever is gone, though every duty above still stands.
The gas safety duties apply across England and Wales. The remedies in this section, the rent repayment order, the fitness claim, and the end of Section 21, describe the position in England. Wales runs its own system through the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 and Rent Smart Wales. Welsh tenancies became occupation contracts in December 2022, but no-fault possession still exists there under a section 173 notice, with at least 6 months' notice.
What to do if your landlord has no gas safety certificate
A landlord who has not arranged a gas safety check is putting your safety at risk and breaking a duty that has been law for decades. Start today. Write the formal request for the certificate, report the breach to the HSE and your council, and keep every message in one place. If a faulty gas installation has cost you money or made your home unsafe, that is the ground for a compensation claim.
If you are not sure which route fits your situation, Remedy can check what your landlord was required to do, tell you whether you have a disrepair claim, and help you draft the letters and organise the evidence.
