How long to keep landlord certificates in England
A new certificate arrives and the old one looks like clutter. How long to keep landlord certificates in England depends on which one you're holding, and the answer for gas is a legal minimum, not a guess.
Last reviewed 17 August 2026 · England
The new Gas Safety Record lands, the new EICR replaces the last one, and the obvious move is to bin whatever came before. For most of a landlord’s paperwork, that instinct is harmless. For one certificate on the England landlord compliance checklist, it breaks a legal requirement. The rule is not the same for gas, an EICR and an EPC, and treating all three the same way is how a landlord who is otherwise doing everything properly ends up with a gap in the file.
Gas: two years, in the regulations themselves
Regulation 36(3) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 requires a landlord to retain a record of each safety check for at least two years from the date it was carried out. This is not a recommendation from a trade body or a habit worth forming. It is the one figure on this list written into the law a landlord actually answers to, and it means throwing out last year’s CP12 the day the new one arrives can leave you short of what the regulation requires you to hold.
In practice, keeping every Gas Safety Record for as long as you own the property costs nothing and clears the two-year bar without a second thought. The two years is a floor, not a target.
EICR: no statutory figure, but a real reason to keep it
Nothing in the Electrical Safety Standards regulations sets a specific number of years for how long a landlord must retain an old EICR. That absence gets read as permission to discard it, which misses two practical reasons to keep it anyway. The electrician carrying out the next inspection will usually ask to see the previous report, since it shows what was already flagged and fixed. And a dated set of EICRs, going back further than the current one, is precisely the kind of record a reasonable steps defence draws on if a council or tribunal ever questions whether the property has been kept in date.
A landlord who reads the report’s own re-inspection date correctly, covered in when your EICR actually expires, already has the harder part of this right. Keeping the superseded report afterwards is the easy part that costs nothing to get right too.
EPC: the one certificate you don’t need to store yourself
The EPC works differently from the other two. Every certificate lodged goes onto the national EPC register, which keeps a copy for 20 years and can produce it again on request. An expired EPC sitting in a landlord’s own folder is a convenience, not a requirement. What actually matters is holding a valid one before the property is marketed or re-let, which is a separate question covered in what changes at year ten.
| Certificate | The rule | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Gas Safety Record (CP12) | At least 2 years, set in law | Regulation 36(3) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 names the figure directly. |
| EICR | No fixed number, keep it anyway | The next electrician needs the previous report to compare against, and it is evidence for a reasonable steps defence. |
| EPC | Not your job to store | The national EPC register holds a copy for 20 years and produces it on request. |
Why this outlasts tidiness
A landlord who keeps every old certificate is not being sentimental about paperwork. A history of gas checks, EICRs and their dates is what turns “I always book the renewal on time” from a claim into a record a council or tribunal can actually see. The certificates you kept prove the certificates you renewed, in a way that a single current one, on its own, cannot.
Old certificates also settle disputes that have nothing to do with fines. Selling a rental property or handing it to a new managing agent both go faster with a complete history on hand rather than a single current certificate and a gap behind it.
What to do now
- Keep every Gas Safety Record for at least two years. Keeping the full run for as long as you own the property clears that bar without having to check dates on old paper.
- Keep every superseded EICR rather than binning it at renewal. The next engineer will likely ask for it, and it strengthens your reasonable steps record if a certificate is ever questioned.
- Stop worrying about your own copy of an expired EPC. The national register already holds it for 20 years.
- Keep the current and the superseded certificates in the same place so neither gets lost when the other is renewed. CertSorted keeps every certificate against its property and reminds you at 90, 60, 30 and 7 days before the next one is due, so the record builds itself as you go.
This applies to rental properties in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland set their own record-keeping rules.