Giving Your Tenant the Gas Safety Certificate: The 28-Day Rule and Proof of Delivery

The Two Delivery Deadlines

Regulation 36(6) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 sets different timelines depending on whether you're serving an existing tenant or a new one:

Existing tenants: a copy of the updated Landlord Gas Safety Record must reach every current tenant within 28 calendar days of the check. The clock starts on the inspection date printed on the record — not the date you receive the document from the engineer.

New tenants: the record must be delivered before the tenant physically moves in. Not on the day they collect the keys, not the day after — before occupation. This is a hard pre-condition, and missing it has enforcement consequences.

For a tenancy lasting no more than 28 days, Regulation 36(6)(b) allows the record to be displayed prominently in the property instead of being given to the tenant.

Acceptable Delivery Methods

The law doesn't prescribe how you deliver the record, but it does care about proof. Methods ranked by the strength of evidence they create:

Hand delivery with a signed receipt: The strongest option. Hand the tenant a paper copy and get them to sign and date a delivery acknowledgement. Keep a photocopy of the signed receipt in your compliance file.

Email with a PDF attachment: HSE says you can provide the record electronically if the tenant is happy to receive it that way and can access it; you must provide a paper copy if they ask. Save the sent email and any delivery confirmation.

Recorded delivery by post: Royal Mail Signed For provides a tracking receipt and proof of delivery. Useful when the tenant is hard to pin down in person.

Property management portal upload: If you use software with tenant access, uploading to a portal with an automatic notification and access log creates a digital audit trail. Not all landlords have this option, but it's effective where available.

Casual methods — handing over an unsealed envelope, leaving it on the kitchen counter, mentioning it in a text message — create weak or no evidence. If the tenant later claims they never received the record, you're exposed.

Why Proof Matters More Than the Act

Having a valid Landlord Gas Safety Record is one half of compliance. Showing that you delivered it on time is the other half. A tenant can say "I never got it," so keep a delivery receipt, email trail, or portal log to help demonstrate timely service.

This is the execution gap that catches landlords. The check itself gets done, the record gets issued, but the delivery becomes an afterthought. A quick handover with no documentation turns a compliant landlord into one who can't prove they complied.

Building the Delivery Into Your Process

A reliable system looks like this:

1. Inspection day: engineer completes the check and issues the record
2. Within 48 hours: check all nine statutory fields on the record are completed
3. Within 7 days: deliver a copy to the tenant using one of the methods above
4. Same day as delivery: file the delivery proof (signed receipt, email confirmation, postal tracking number) alongside the record in your compliance folder
5. Date-stamp everything: your own log entry recording the delivery date, method, and evidence type

The 28-day deadline gives you a comfortable window. Using it all is unnecessary — deliver within the first week and you eliminate the risk of running late.

For pre-tenancy delivery, build the record handover into your check-in process. The Gas Safety Record goes out with the tenancy agreement and inventory, signed for at the same time.

Our Gas Safety Compliance Guide includes a tenant delivery log template designed for exactly this — a single-page record you fill in after every delivery, ready to produce if the council or HSE ever asks.

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