CP12 Renewals: How Hero AI Chases Landlords Before the Certificate Lapses
Every CP12 is a built-in annual job worth about £95. Most lapse because nobody owns the follow-up. Here's how Hero AI chases landlords until they book.
Picture this: it’s a Thursday afternoon, you’re under a sink in a terrace in Wolverhampton, and a letting agent rings. “The gas cert on Mrs Patel’s flat ran out three weeks ago. Can you get someone round today?”
You can. But you shouldn’t have to hear about it like that. That renewal was in your diary a year ago. Nobody chased it, the landlord forgot, and now you’re squeezing in a panic job instead of a planned one.
That’s the problem with annual gas work. It’s the most predictable income you’ve got, and it’s the easiest to let slide.
Why CP12 renewal reminders are the job nobody owns
Every Gas Safe engineer knows the rule. Landlords must have every gas appliance and flue they provide checked at least every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer, keep the record for two years, and give existing tenants a copy within 28 days of the check.
So the date is fixed. The customer is known. The price is roughly known. And yet renewals still lapse, because the follow-up sits between two jobs: yours (you’re on the tools) and the landlord’s (they’ve got a day job and six other things to remember).
Most plumbing management software handles this with a single automated reminder. Commusoft, for one, markets automated boiler service reminders and digital CP12 completion in its app. Fair enough, reminders are table stakes now. But one reminder isn’t a chase. A landlord who ignores email number one will ignore it again in the diary.
The difference is who keeps going until the landlord says “yes, Tuesday works”.
The 12-month clock and the 2-month window
Here’s the bit that makes chasing easier than people think.
Since the 2018 amendment to the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations, the annual check can be done up to two months before the due date and the original deadline is kept. So an early visit doesn’t shorten the landlord’s cycle. They lose nothing by booking early.
That gives you an outreach window. Our suggested rhythm:
- About 10 weeks out: first contact. The window’s about to open.
- Inside the window: follow up, with a time offered rather than a vague “get in touch”.
- By 4 weeks out: visit booked on the board. If it isn’t, the chase gets more direct.
And you can say all this in the message. “You can book now and keep your current renewal date” removes the landlord’s favourite excuse for leaving it.
One more detail worth knowing: the record is valid for 12 months from the check date, and it has to be issued on completion of the check, even if defects are found. Don’t hold the cert back until the remedial work is done.
What a lapsed renewal is worth to you
Let’s do the sums, because this is where it gets real.
UK sources put a landlord CP12 anywhere from £55 to £140, with one quoting £95 including VAT. Take £95. A book of 60 landlord properties is roughly £5,700 a year.
Lose ten of them to lapses and drift, and that’s £950 gone. Not counting the follow-on work. A CP12 visit is when you find the failing diverter, the weeping isolation valve, the boiler that’s due a replacement. (And since 1 October 2022, a CO alarm is required in every room with a fixed combustion appliance, excluding gas cookers. That’s an easy add-on at the same visit.)
There’s also a market behind it. In England, 19% of households rent privately, roughly 4.7 million homes, nearly all needing an annual check if they’ve got gas. And the Gas Safe Register had 75,920 registered businesses in 2024/25. You’re not the only one those landlords can ring. The firm that makes renewal effortless keeps the customer.
How Hero AI chases CP12 renewals
This is the job we built Hero AI to take off your plate: the follow-up nobody has time for.
Hero AI is your AI staff, not another screen to check. It keeps hold of the renewal dates, reaches out to landlords and agents ahead of expiry, and keeps following up with customers who’ve gone quiet. It re-engages dormant accounts too, which is where lapsed landlords end up. When a landlord replies, Hero AI can answer the call or message and book the visit onto the board, so the renewal doesn’t depend on you being free to pick up.
The test of any renewal chaser isn’t “did it send something?” It’s “did it keep going until the landlord booked?”
A good chase message is short and specific. Something like this (example wording):
Hi Sarah, the gas safety record for 14 Alder Road expires on 18 June. You can have it done from 18 April and keep the same renewal date. We’ve got Tuesday 29th or Thursday 1st — which suits?
Three things in there matter. The date. The early-booking point. And two options rather than an open question. Landlords answer choices. They ignore requests.
If they still don’t reply, the next message shouldn’t be a copy of the first. It should be firmer, and it should say what’s at stake.
Say what’s at stake (without scaremongering)
Let’s be straight about the legal side, because landlords respond to it.
In a recent HSE case, a Wirral landlord pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 36(3) after leaving a tenanted boiler unchecked for eight years. A woman was living there with her five children. He was fined £2,400 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs. HSE started that investigation after a council raised a concern, and asked him for his gas safety records.
So a missing record isn’t just paperwork. It’s a criminal matter, and HSE asks for dated records. We won’t quote you a maximum fine here, because published sources disagree. The Wirral figures are the ones we can stand behind.
Enforcement is moving the same way. HSE said during Gas Safety Week that 17 people have been convicted of illegal gas work since the start of 2025, against 3 in 2022/23 and 4 in 2023/24.
One thing to drop: Section 21. The Renters’ Rights Act came into force on 1 May 2026 and abolished no-fault evictions in England. The gas certificate is still a legal duty, but it’s no longer tied to a Section 21 notice. Some landlords used that as their reason to keep certificates current, so they need a new one: prosecution risk, tenant safety, insurance, and the new national landlord database the Act creates.
Letting agents are the real prize
One landlord is £95 a year. One agent can be dozens of properties.
Agents need proof of compliance on file, so give them what they actually need: one dated expiry schedule, and a copy of each CP12 sent over as soon as it’s done. Once you’re part of their compliance routine, you’re not a vendor they re-quote every spring. We’ve written before about what small plumbing firms need from their software, and this is a big part of it.
What to ask before you pay for anything
Whatever you’re looking at, whether it’s gas Safe engineer software or a landlord gas safety certificate app, ask four questions:
- Does it hold the expiry date and the 2-month window for every property?
- Does it send more than one message?
- Does it stop when the landlord books, and escalate when they don’t?
- Does the price pay for itself if it saves one or two £95 renewals a month?
If you want the wider picture, our piece on plumbing business management software that does more than invoices covers the rest of the back office.
Hero AI starts at £19.99 a month, with no per-seat pricing, so adding an engineer doesn’t raise the bill. See how it works for plumbing firms, or read how it helps you never lose a customer.
Your renewal dates are already in your diary. Download the Hero365 app and put someone on the chasing.
