Section · Records kept in-house
One file per unit, and a diary that says when each line in it falls due.
Records are not sent out to a compliance service and summarised back. They sit at the registered office, one file to a unit, and the diary that governs them is read in this office. A unit does not go on the changeover schedule until its file carries the records below that apply to it.
The diary, and the interval each line runs for
| Record | Falls due | Read against |
|---|---|---|
| Gas safety record | Twelve months from the date of the check | Each gas appliance in the unit |
| Electrical installation condition report | Five years, or sooner where the report itself says so | The fixed wiring of the unit |
| Appliance checks | At each change of occupier | Appliances the unit provides, not the occupier’s own |
| Smoke and carbon monoxide alarm test | At the start of every occupancy | Each alarm, tested on the inspection walk |
| Energy performance certificate | Ten years | The unit as let |
| Fire door and escape route check | Every changeover inspection | Doors, closers and the route out of a shared hall |
| Water system risk assessment | Reviewed when the system is altered | Tanks, long dead legs, little-used outlets |
| Borough licence, where one is required | The term written on the licence | The conditions attached to it |
Intervals above are the ones the records themselves run for. They are listed so a landlord can see what is tracked, and they are not offered as legal advice on any particular building.
How the diary is read
On the first working day of each month the diary is read end to end. Anything falling due inside sixty days is booked with a date, not noted as upcoming. Anything booked but not yet done is carried forward with the original due date still attached, so a line cannot quietly age.
If a record lapses, the unit comes off the changeover schedule until it is back. That is the whole enforcement mechanism and it is deliberately blunt: there is no version of the sheet where a key is released against a lapsed line.
Who is shown what
To a landlord your own unit’s file, in full, and in one piece if you want it handed back. Not another unit’s file, and not a portfolio summary that mixes the two.
To an occupier the records the law requires be given to you for the place you are in — the gas safety record and the energy performance certificate — and the inspection sheets for your own unit. Ask by email with the unit reference and they are sent back by email.
Where the paper actually is
In the unit file at 87 Hampton Road, with a scan kept alongside it on an office machine. The scan is the working copy, used so that a file is not carried around to a changeover; the paper is the record. Where a contractor issues only a digital certificate, that is printed for the file as well, because a file with gaps in it is read as a file with gaps in it.
Meter photographs are filed against the unit and the date rather than in a camera roll. A photograph that cannot be tied to a unit and a changeover is not evidence of a reading, and it is treated as not taken.
Asking for a line out of a file
Write to stays@urbanvalueproperties.space with the unit reference and the record you want. The office replies in writing with the record attached, or says plainly why it cannot — usually because the record belongs to a different unit. What the office holds about people, as opposed to buildings, is set out on what we hold.