Welcome to the Basingstoke Property Blog

  As a landlord, it is your responsibility to ensure that any appliance you provide in your property are safe for your tenants to use.   However, there are have been a number of high profile property fires recently, where the source of the fire has been identified as being a faulty appliance. Not least of these was the recent tragedy at Grenfell Tower.   Nationally, less than half of adults (43 per cent) register their appliances with a manufacturer, leaving many owners untraceable if a product needs a safety repair.   As a result, the Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances (AMDEA), set up Register My Appliance (RMA) as a not-for-profit safety initiative, in an attempt to increase the number of appliances that are registered, and therefore improve the ability for manufacturers to communicate to owners if a safety repair is required.   Register My Appliance is an easy to navigate online portal where landlords, th...

Many landlords are still unaware it would seem, that failure to carry out a Gas Safety check on all the gas appliances and flues in a rental property at least annually (by a Gas Safe-registered engineer) is a criminal offence. It is also a criminal offence to allow there to be a gap between valid gas safety certificates during any part of an active tenancy. A gas safety certificate can expire in between tenancies, as long as a new one is carried out before the start of a new tenancy, and a copy of that certificate is provided to the tenant. Failure to carry out these checks and ensure they are safe for the tenant to use can result in a custodial sentence, or a substantial fine. Landlord Fined £17,500 This was recently highlighted by a case where a landlord was fined £17,500 for failing to maintain gas appliances at a domestic property in Haverfordwest. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found the landlord failed to obtain a Landlord Gas Safety...