Tenants massively ignorant of health and safety in their homes

A rental sector supplier claims huge numbers of tenants are extremely ignorant of the health and safety issues surrounding their rental property - and are confused as to where the responsibilities lie. 

Gas Tag claims this confusion is made worse by the growth of accidental landlords who may not know their obligations - accidential landlord numbers have boomed to more than 230,000 while the number of experienced and professional or semi-professonal buy to let landlords has plummeted.

At the same time, figures suggest a record number of families are renting privately as home ownership declines.

Now by law, landlords - or agents acting on their behalf - are obliged to ensure gas appliances are checked annually by a GasSafe registered engineer and must provide their tenants with a gas safety certificate within 28 days of the annual check taking place.

In addition, agents and landlords also need to install a working smoke alarm, and CO alarms in rooms with a solid fuel appliance. 

On top of that, the landlord or owner must also ensure that electrical installations and wiring are maintained in a safe condition throughout the tenancy and electrical appliances must be checked on change of tenancy or at least every five years. 

However, a Gas Tag survey claims many tenants are not even aware of the legal obligations of their landlords or agents.

In its survey it found that 28 per cent of tenants either didn’t have or did not know if their rented home had a gas safety certificate and some 24 per cent did not think their landlord was obliged to install a carbon monoxide alarm if there was a solid fuel burning source like wood or coal.

Over 80 per cent did not know that an agent or landlord is responsible for checking all electrical appliances every time a new tenant moves into a property, while 50 per cent still think their gas engineer should be Corgi registered – it changed to Gas Safe Register almost 10 years ago. 

Finally some 36 per cent wrongly thought they - rather than the agent or landlord -  would be responsible for electrical safety in the rented home.