How to track landlord compliance certificates properly
Every landlord in England has a system for tracking certificates. Most of them are a folder, a spreadsheet, or an agent. None of the three does the one thing that actually matters: telling you before a date passes.
Last reviewed 30 July 2026 · England
Open the sideboard in most rented properties and you’ll find the same thing: a folder of certificates, sorted roughly by year, none of them cross-checked against today’s date. It’s not neglect. It’s the natural result of a system built to store paper, not to watch a calendar.
The folder proves you have certificates, not that they’re in date
A landlord who keeps every gas safety record, EICR and EPC in one folder has done something most people skip. But a folder answers one question only: does this certificate exist? It says nothing about whether the EICR expired eleven months ago, or whether the gas engineer’s next visit is overdue by a fortnight. Checking means pulling out six documents and doing the maths yourself, on the day you happen to think of it.
Why a spreadsheet fails the same way, with extra steps
A spreadsheet feels like an upgrade. It isn’t, structurally. It still only holds what you typed into it, and the trap most landlords fall into is typing the wrong date in the first place: setting an EICR’s renewal five years from the issue date, when the engineer’s report actually calls for re-inspection sooner. The spreadsheet has no way to flag that mismatch, because it never read the report. And on the day the real deadline arrives, nothing pings. You only find out if you happen to open the tab.
The letting agent doesn’t move the duty, just the paperwork
Handing certificates to an agent can feel like handing over the risk too. It doesn’t. The statutory duty to keep a property compliant sits with the landlord named on the tenancy, whatever the management agreement says. If an agent’s own system misses a renewal, the council’s letter still arrives at the landlord’s address. See landlord responsibilities with a letting agent for what stays yours regardless of who holds the file.
| Method | Records the date | Chases you | Proves compliance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper folder | Yes | No | Only if you find it in time |
| Spreadsheet | Yes | No | Only what you typed in |
| Phone calendar reminder | No | Once | Nothing |
| Letting agent | Sometimes | Sometimes | Their file, not yours |
What tracking properly actually requires
- The certificate’s real expiry date, taken from the report itself, not a rule of thumb applied to the issue date.
- A reminder that reaches you before the date passes, not a note you have to go looking for.
- A dated record of what was renewed and when, which is the evidence behind a reasonable steps defence if a certificate ever does lapse.
None of that needs a filing system rebuilt from scratch. CertSorted holds each certificate against its property, reminds you at 90, 60, 30 and 7 days before it lapses, and keeps the log that shows you acted, so the folder in the sideboard stops being the only record you have.
This applies to rental properties in England.