CP12 is an old form number from a British Gas era of paperwork, and it has outlived the form. Landlords, agents and engineers still use it to mean the landlord's gas safety record, and everyone in the trade knows what is meant. There is no legal document called a CP12 today; there is a record of the annual check, and CP12 is its nickname.
Why the CP12 gas certificate name stuck
The number was the form's identifier in the old CORGI paperwork, and it was short, memorable and unambiguous in a way that record of the annual gas safety check is not. Trade language rarely gives up a short name.
What the CP12 gas safety certificate is now
The record required by the gas safety regulations, produced by a Gas Safe registered engineer, usually on the engineer's own software or on a pad from a trade supplier. Its validity comes from the engineer and the content, not from a form number.
CP12 certificate cost: the same as the check
The same as the gas safety check that produces it: a visit, an appliance count, and any service bundled with it. Anyone selling a CP12 without attending the property is selling a fraud, and a landlord who buys one has paid for a document that will not survive the first question an inspector asks.
Related codes you may see
CP12 for the domestic landlord record, and CP17 and CP42 in commercial work. The commercial codes cover different scopes and are issued after different inspections, so a business premises should check which one it is being quoted for.
What is CP12 certificate paperwork called now
The Landlord Gas Safety Record. CP12 was a form number on a printed pad and the industry kept saying it after the pads went, so a letting agent asking for a CP12 and an engineer handing over a Landlord Gas Safety Record are exchanging the same document. What matters on it rather than the name: every appliance and flue the landlord provides listed individually, the safety check results against each one, any defects and what was done, the engineer's Gas Safe registration number, and the date, because the duty is annual and the copy has to reach the tenant within twenty eight days.
Questions people ask about cp12
What is a CP12 certificate?
The everyday name for the landlord's gas safety record: the document a Gas Safe registered engineer issues after the annual check.
Is a CP12 a legal requirement?
The record is. The name is not: the regulations require a record of the check with specific content, however the engineer formats it.
Can I get a CP12 without an inspection?
No. Anybody offering one is committing an offence and the document is worthless. The check is the product; the paper is the receipt.
What is a CP12 certificate, and is that its real name?
CP12 is the old form number for the landlord's gas safety record, from the days when the industry used a printed pad, and the name stuck. The document it means is the Landlord Gas Safety Record: an annual check by a Gas Safe registered engineer of every gas appliance and flue the landlord provides, recording the appliance, the results of the safety checks, any defects and the engineer's registration number. The duty is annual, a copy goes to the existing tenant within twenty eight days and to a new tenant before they move in.