The Court of Appeal has ruled on the issue of how far back a landlord's gas safety records must go to serve a valid section 21 notice.
Although it is no longer possible for private landlords to serve notice pursuant to section 21 of the Housing Act 1988 on their tenants following the Renters' Rights Act 2025 coming into force, many landlords are still awaiting determination of possession claims based on notices served before the Act. Registered provider landlords can also still serve section 21 notices. A key question remains: how far back must a landlord's gas safety records go to validly serve a section 21 notice?
In the cases of Muca v El Amrani; Harker v Hubert [2026] EWCA Civ 515, the Court of Appeal has taken a maximalist position on the question.
Regulation 36(6) of the GSR 2018 provides that a landlord must:
- Give to each tenant a gas safety certificate following each inspection; and
- Provide to each new tenant a copy of the most recent gas safety certificate for the property prior to their occupation.
Section 21A of the HA 1988 (as amended by the Deregulation Act 2015, DRA 2015) provides that a landlord must comply with all statutory requirements prescribed by the Assured Shorthold Tenancy Notices and Prescribed Requirements (England) Regulations 2015 (ASTR 2015) to rely on a section 21 notice.
In Cassell v Sidhu (October 2025), the County Court found that a landlord need only provide records for the two most recent checks. However, in Muca v El Amrani; Harker v Hubert, the Court of Appeal rejected this and two further arguments advanced by the landlords: that only the most recent certificate was required, and that "occupation" should refer to the commencement of each subsequent tenancy rather than when the tenant first physically occupied the property.
The Court of Appeal held that a landlord must have complied with both limbs of regulation 36(6): providing a pre-occupation gas safety certificate and copies of all subsequent annual records. "Occupation" refers to when the tenant first came into physical occupation, and the grant of subsequent tenancies does not reset this obligation.
The practical effect is that a landlord who failed to provide a pre-occupation gas safety certificate cannot remedy that failure by providing later records, even where the original tenancy pre-dates the Deregulation Act 2015.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeal distinguished Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield [2020] EWCA Civ 760, which had previously given landlords some comfort by allowing that a failure to provide a gas safety certificate could be remedied by providing it to the tenant before serving a section 21 notice. The Court held that Trecarrell did not, however, decide the position where a pre-occupation certificate had not been provided. The Court has now clarified that such a failure cannot be remedied.
Although private landlords can no longer serve section 21 notices, many are still awaiting determination of existing possession claims. The Court of Appeal's decision places a significant burden on landlords, although the forthcoming Supreme Court appeal could yet provide a lifeline for those unable to produce historic gas safety records.
