Get your rental properties winter-ready: a landlord's checklist

To get a rental property winter-ready, check the gas safety record is in date, get the boiler serviced, lag any exposed condensate pipework, test the carbon monoxide alarms, clear the air vents, and make sure tenants know how to report a fault fast. Done in early autumn, it prevents most December emergencies.

What should landlords check before winter?

Start with the compliance basics, because they're the ones with legal weight behind them. Everything else on this checklist is good practice; these are duties.

• Is every property's gas safety record in date, with the next-due date noted somewhere you'll actually see it? Book anything due before spring now, while engineers still have room in the diary.
• Has every tenant had their copy of the latest record? Existing tenants are owed one within 28 days of each check, and a new tenant needs one before they move in.
• Are the carbon monoxide alarms working and within their replace-by date, and are the air vents clear? Tenants sometimes block vents to stop draughts, which is exactly the wrong fix.

Do landlords need to service the boiler before winter?

The annual gas safety check is the legal duty; a boiler service is separate and not legally required, but before winter it's the single most useful thing you can book. The safety check confirms an appliance is safe to use now. A service is about reliability, catching the small faults in a boiler that has sat idle all summer before they become a no-heat call on the first cold night. Book it early. By late October engineers' diaries fill with the autumn rush, and by December you're queueing behind every breakdown in the postcode.

How do you stop pipes freezing in a rental property?

The frozen pipe that catches most rentals out is the boiler's condensate pipe, the plastic drain that often runs down an outside wall. A hard frost freezes the water in it and the boiler locks out, leaving the tenant with no heat over exactly the wrong week. Waterproof lagging on any external or unheated-space run is a small, cheap job that prevents it, and if a pipe has frozen before, ask the engineer about re-routing it to drain internally. While you're thinking about pipes, agree with tenants what happens if they go away over the holidays; leaving some background heat on protects the whole system through a hard freeze.

What should tenants do before the cold arrives?

Ask them to run the heating for an hour now, while it's still autumn. A fault that shows up in October is an easy booking; the same fault in December is an emergency. Then make reporting easy, because most winter emergencies got worse when nobody flagged the early warning sign.

• Run the heating properly once before it's needed, and report anything odd: cold radiators, dropping boiler pressure, unusual noises.
• Test the carbon monoxide alarms with the button, and say something if one fails or is past its date.
• Know exactly how to reach you or your agent fast, including over the holidays, and be told plainly that flagging a smell of gas or a sounding alarm is never a nuisance.

How do you keep track of it all across several properties?

One property is a calendar note. Five properties, each with its own check date, service date and alarm dates, is where things slip, and an expired gas safety record is a legal problem, not an admin one. Whatever system you use, keep the next-due dates in one place you look at monthly, and book autumn work in one batch rather than piecemeal. If you want a quick answer on where any certificate stands, our free CP12 renewal checker works out the renewal window from the last check date.