The London landlord compliance calendar, explained

Landlord compliance in London is not one deadline; it is a rolling calendar of overlapping cycles, and most breaches happen not through neglect but through drift. A certificate expires quietly, a tenancy renews without the right document served, a borough introduces a licensing scheme nobody emailed you about. This article lays the whole calendar out: what is due, how often, what must reach the tenant, and what it costs when it slips.

The annual cycle: gas and alarms

The annual items are the ones most landlords know. The Gas Safety Certificate (CP12) must be renewed every twelve months for any property with gas appliances, and the record must reach the tenant within 28 days of the check, or before they move in for a new tenancy. The inspection itself covers every landlord-owned gas appliance and the pipework serving them, carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer. Book it from the renewal date backwards rather than forwards from a reminder, because tenant access, not engineer availability, is what usually eats the margin.

Alarms sit alongside gas in the annual rhythm. Smoke alarms must be present on every storey used as living accommodation, and carbon monoxide alarms in any room with a fixed combustion appliance, which since 2022 includes gas boilers. The landlord must ensure alarms work at the start of every tenancy, and repair or replace them promptly when a tenant reports a fault. It is a five-minute check that appears in an uncomfortable number of possession cases when it is missed.

The five- and ten-year cycles

The longer cycles are where drift creeps in. An Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) runs on a five-year cycle, or shorter if the previous report says so, and applies to every privately rented home in England. The report has to be given to existing tenants within 28 days of the inspection, to new tenants before occupation, and to the local authority within seven days if they ask.

Energy Performance Certificates last ten years, but the trap is not the expiry date. A property cannot lawfully be let below the minimum energy efficiency standard, currently band E, without a registered exemption, and government has consulted on raising that floor. A new tenancy against an expired or sub-standard EPC is a fine waiting to happen, and it also undermines any later attempt to serve notice, so the EPC belongs on the same calendar as gas and electrics rather than in a drawer.

Water, fire and the assessments without fixed dates

Legionella risk assessments have no fixed statutory interval, but the Health and Safety Executive expects them to be reviewed regularly and after any material change to the water system: a new cylinder, altered pipework, a long void. Most rented homes are low risk and the assessment is straightforward, taking well under an hour, but "we never did one" is not a defensible position in a tribunal.

Fire safety scales with the building. Inside a single let dwelling, the alarm rules above carry the load. In HMOs and in the common parts of flats, the Fire Safety Order applies: a fire risk assessment must exist, escape routes must be kept clear, and fire doors must be maintained with their closers and seals intact rather than propped open with a fire extinguisher, which is the configuration we find more often than anyone would like. Damp and mould now belong in this category of always-on obligations too: response expectations have tightened sharply across the sector, and a documented, prompt reaction to any report is the only safe posture.

Event-driven obligations at tenancy start

Then there are the event-driven obligations, and they cluster around move-in day:

• Protect the deposit in a government-approved scheme within 30 days and serve the prescribed information.
• Complete Right to Rent checks on every adult occupier before occupation begins.
• Serve the current How to Rent guide, and serve it again on renewal if a new version has been published.
• Hand over the gas record, the EICR and the EPC before or at the start of the tenancy.

Each is simple in isolation; together they form a checklist that punishes anyone managing it from memory, because several of them cannot be fixed retrospectively. A deposit protected on day 40 is a breach on day 40, whatever happens afterwards.

One habit covers the gaps between all of these: keep evidence of attempts as well as outcomes. When a tenant repeatedly refuses access for a gas check or an inspection, the dated letters and messages showing you tried are what stand between reasonable-steps compliance and a strict-liability breach.

Licensing: the postcode-dependent layer

London adds a layer most national guides skim: borough licensing. Mandatory HMO licensing applies everywhere to properties housing five or more people from two or more households who share facilities. On top of that, individual boroughs run additional licensing schemes for smaller HMOs and selective licensing schemes that can cover every rented property in a designated area, and the designations change. A portfolio that spans three boroughs can face three entirely different regimes, each with its own conditions, fees, application evidence and renewal dates. Letting an unlicensed property that should be licensed is not a paperwork slip: it exposes the landlord to civil penalties and rent repayment orders covering up to twelve months of rent.

What the slips actually cost

The penalty schedule explains why the calendar deserves respect. Electrical non-compliance carries local authority fines of up to £30,000 per breach. Deposit failures cost one to three times the deposit in compensation, awarded to the tenant. Gas safety failures are criminal matters that can, at the serious end, end in prosecution. Unlicensed letting invites rent repayment orders. And running quietly underneath all of it: a landlord who cannot evidence gas, EPC, deposit and How to Rent compliance will find the standard possession route closed until the record is put right, which turns a paperwork lapse into a possession problem.

Running it as a calendar, not a memory

Our advice is unglamorous but effective. Put every property's cycles in one place, work from renewal dates backwards with at least six weeks of lead time, and file certificates the day they arrive, against the property rather than in an inbox. Treat tenancy-start obligations as a single checklist executed before keys change hands, not a series of things to remember that week. This is exactly what GEM's subscription plans automate for our clients (the reminders, the bookings and the filed records), but whether or not you use us, the principle stands: compliance is a calendar problem, and calendars are solvable.

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