Social landlords must comply with gas regulations to avoid prosecution....

Social landlords must comply with gas regulations to avoid prosecution in case of an explosion, says Matthew Lake

On average there are four gas explosions each year in the UK. The Health and Safety Executive might conclude that those explosions were the result of unavoidable and tragic circumstances.

However, if a death occurs the police might prosecute the landlord of the property - potentially even for suspected corporate manslaughter - if it discovers a breach of gas safety regulations.

The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 require landlords to protect tenants’ safety by ensuring regular inspections of gas appliances are undertaken by suitably qualified persons on the Gas Safety Register.

While a breach of the provisions may not be the cause of the explosion, this will certainly not assist a landlord which becomes the subject of a regulatory investigation following an explosion.

To ensure compliance with the regulations, landlords should undertake regular audits and maintain a register of those they employ to work on gas appliances and flues to ensure they are on the Gas Safe Register (which replaced the Corgi registration scheme from 1 April 2009).

For registered providers of social housing it will often be the case that they have entered into long-term service contracts before the transition from Corgi registration to the Gas Safe Register took place. Installers’ Corgi registration numbers were available to landlords at the point of registration on the Gas Safe Register so an audit should be a fairly straightforward exercise to undertake - but an important one.

Matthew Lake is a solicitor in the property litigation team at Weightmans LLP
matthew.lake@weightmans.com