Suspended jail sentence after rental property’s safety failure

A landlord from Plymouth has been sentenced after failing to maintain gas appliances and failing to have landlord’s gas safety checks undertaken at his rental property in the city.

Plymouth Crown Court heard how, in August 2018, a concern was raised with the Health and Safety Executive by a previous tenant that no landlord’s gas safety checks had been carried out for three years. 

The HSE made numerous attempts to contact the landlord,  Thomas Brumby, but received no replies or representations.

Having failed to provide HSE with a copy of any landlord’s gas safety records for his tenanted property, a formal Improvement Notice was served on Brumby requiring him to arrange for the gas appliances at his tenanted property to be checked and maintained. 

He ignored this Improvement Notice and has now pleaded guilty to breaches under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. 

He has been sentenced to 15 weeks in prison for each offence, both suspended for 18 months, and ordered to pay costs of £1,500.

An HSE spokesman says the landlord “put the residents and other members of the public at risk of harm by failing to maintain gas appliances in a domestic property. He showed contempt of the law surrounding gas safety at a tenanted property. Landlords must ensure they obtain a landlord’s gas safety record and they maintain all gas appliances in accordance with the law.”