New landlord checklist: certificates before your first let
Six certificates, five of them before a tenant ever holds a key, and no single document that lists the order. This new landlord checklist covers England only, and it starts before the property goes on the letting site.
Last reviewed 4 August 2026 · England
Most guides for a new landlord list every certificate at once, in no particular order, as though they all land on the same day. They don’t. Some have to exist before you can advertise the property. Others only matter from the day a tenant moves in. Get the order wrong and you either delay the first letting or hand over keys to a property that isn’t legally lettable yet. This checklist covers England only, and it follows the order that actually applies, not the order most lists print them in.
Before you advertise the property
An EPC has to exist, and rate at band E or above, before the property is marketed to let at all, not before the tenancy starts. This is the one certificate on the list that comes first by law, and it’s the one new landlords most often leave until they’ve already found a tenant. Book it before the listing goes live, not after.
Before day one of the tenancy
Everything else has to be in place by the day a tenant collects the keys, not the day you sign the tenancy agreement and not sometime in the first month.
| Certificate | Needed by | Renews |
|---|---|---|
| EPC | Before you advertise the property | Every 10 years |
| Gas Safety (CP12) | Before day one of the tenancy | Every 12 months |
| EICR | Before day one of the tenancy | Every 5 years, or the report's own date |
| Smoke and CO alarms | Fitted and tested before day one | Checked at every tenancy start |
| Legionella risk assessment | Before day one of the tenancy | Review recommended every 2 years |
| HMO licence | Before letting, if the property needs one | Typically 5 years |
Gas Safety and the EICR both need a qualified engineer and time in their diary, so book both as soon as the property is empty and ready, not the week before the tenancy starts. Smoke and CO alarms carry no certificate at all, a landlord can fit them directly, which is exactly why they’re the one item most often forgotten under deadline. A Legionella risk assessment has no fixed renewal date either, so there’s no reminder built into anyone’s calendar unless you set one.
The order that saves you time
- Book the EPC first. It has to exist before the property is advertised, and assessors can be booked weeks out in busy areas.
- Book Gas Safety and the EICR in the same week, while the property is empty. Both need an engineer inside the property, so there’s no reason to run them separately.
- Fit smoke alarms on every storey and a CO alarm in any room with a fixed combustion appliance. Test all of them the same day, not on move-in morning.
- Arrange the Legionella risk assessment before day one. It’s the item with no fixed clock, which makes it the one most likely to be skipped rather than missed.
- Check whether the property needs an HMO licence before you let it. A licence issued after tenants move in doesn’t retroactively cover the gap.
What a council actually checks
A council doesn’t wait for a complaint before it can act. An expired or missing EICR carries a civil penalty of up to £40,000, a missing gas safety record up to £6,000, and a missing EPC up to £5,000. What decides the outcome, if a gap is found, is whether you can show reasonable steps were taken, which is a documented record, not a memory of having meant to book it.
Keeping it in date after the first tenant moves in
The certificates above get a new landlord to day one. Staying compliant after that is a different problem: five separate renewal dates on five different clocks, none of which chase you. The full compliance checklist covers what applies year after year, including the PRS database landlords will need to register on from late 2026.
CertSorted holds every certificate’s real expiry date on one screen from the day you add your first property, and reminds you at 90, 60, 30 and 7 days before each one lapses, so the order above only has to happen once.