Gas Cert

[bil8999]

Hi to all, first time this has happened , tenant is acting awkward, keeps putting the gas engineer off from attending to service and cert the gas supply, what do others do in this situation as its a legal requirement?

[Melboy]

My Son comes across this problem quite often when carrying out gas certification by appointment. First step is for you keep a detailed log on the visits and refusal of entry by the tenant. 2nd step is to officially warn the tenant of his obligations to permit gas certification by recorded letter and double up with a personal hand delivered letter with photographed date stamp at the property front door if you can.  You as a landlord will then be fully covered in your legal obligations for gas safety.   At this stage there is not a lot you can do but if no response then it's over to obtaining legal entry by the Courts and possible eviction of the tenant.  

[fionaf]

Some tenants incorrectly believe that if there is no gas cert you cannot evict them so if planning to stop paying they try various tactics like this but as melboy says keep a record and you 'should' be covered, but with the courts these days who knows!

I also have a brother-in-law who was like this, my other half has PoA for him as he had limited mental capacity. He was embarrased about the state of the property and didn't want to let anyone in. It was a charity who owned the property and were quite hands off, we had to insist they make a routine inspection visit rather than an engineer type one which they hadn't been doing.  He had turned into a hoarder and there was a manhattan skyline of about 200 pizza boxes in his kitchen and living room and evidence of a rodent infestation.  

My ex-boss had a place she rented, the tenants put off and off the visit and she went round and peeked in the letter box to discover a canabis farm. Apparently growing the stuff takes a certain amount of time and the police said it wasn't unusual that things like the gas cert delays that triggered a landlord finding out. Hopefully this isn't the case for you of course!