How Long to Keep Landlord Certificates

As a minimum, keep your current gas safety record plus the two previous ones for at least two years, keep each EICR until the next one replaces it (at least five years), and treat an EPC as relevant for its full 10-year validity. In practice, most landlords keep every certificate for as long as they own the property, since the minimum legal retention period is shorter than the useful life of the document.

The statutory minimums differ by certificate, and a few related records, such as deposit protection paperwork and right to rent evidence, have their own separate retention rules that are easy to overlook because they are not "certificates" in the strict sense. This guide sets out the minimum for each, and why most portfolio landlords keep things considerably longer than the legal floor requires.

Gas safety records

You must keep the current gas safety record, plus the previous two records, for at least two years. This gives a rolling three-check history at any given time. Because the check is annual, this works out to roughly the last two to three years of records being retained at minimum.

Most landlords keep every gas safety record for as long as they own the property, since it builds a maintenance history that is useful if an appliance is later replaced under warranty, if a dispute arises over when a fault was first identified, or if a buyer's solicitor asks for evidence of gas safety compliance during a sale. Our gas safety certificate guide covers the annual check itself in more detail.

EICRs

There is no single fixed number of years specified for EICR retention in the way there is for gas safety records, but the practical requirement is to keep the current report until it is replaced, which happens at least every five years. You should also keep evidence of any remedial work completed following an unsatisfactory report, alongside the report itself, for the same period.

As with gas safety, most landlords keep every historical EICR rather than discarding it once superseded, since a run of reports showing an installation's condition over time is useful evidence of ongoing good management, particularly if an electrical issue is ever disputed.

EPCs

An EPC is valid for 10 years from issue, and there is no specific statutory duty to retain an expired one. In practice, keeping expired EPCs alongside the current one is useful background, since it shows the trajectory of a property's rating over time, which can be helpful when planning improvement works or discussing a sale.

Deposit protection records

Keep your deposit protection certificate and the prescribed information you gave the tenant for the whole tenancy, and for a reasonable period afterwards, since a tenant can bring a claim over an unprotected or incorrectly protected deposit even after the tenancy has ended. There is no single statutory number of years quoted for this specifically, but many landlords apply the general six-year limitation period used for most contract-based claims in England and Wales as a sensible working rule, keeping records for at least that long after a tenancy ends.

Right to rent checks

Evidence from right to rent checks, such as copies of the documents checked and the date of the check, must be retained for the duration of the tenancy and for one year after it ends. This is a specific, defined retention period set out in right to rent guidance, shorter than the informal practice many landlords apply to other records, so it is worth tracking separately rather than assuming the same "keep everything indefinitely" approach covers it. See our right to rent checks guide for how the checks themselves work.

Tenancy agreements and inventories

There is no fixed statutory retention period for tenancy agreements and check-in inventories, but the same six-year limitation period commonly used for contract disputes is a sensible practical benchmark, since a claim relating to the tenancy could in principle be brought within that window. A signed inventory with dated photographs is also one of the most useful documents in a deposit dispute, so keeping it well beyond the tenancy's end, rather than discarding it as soon as a tenant moves out, is worth the minimal storage cost.

Tax records

HMRC requires landlords to keep records supporting a Self Assessment return for at least five years after the 31 January submission deadline for the relevant tax year. If HMRC opens an enquiry into a return, or you need to amend one, you may need to keep the relevant records for longer than the standard five years, so treat this as a floor rather than a target. Our record keeping for HMRC guide covers what specifically needs keeping for property income and expenses.

Insurance records

Keep policy documents and any claims correspondence for at least the length of the policy term, and ideally for several years afterwards, since a dispute over how a past claim was handled can surface well after the event, particularly for buildings insurance claims involving structural repairs that only fully reveal their extent over time.

A simple retention table

Common mistakes

• Discarding a certificate the moment it is replaced. The minimum retention period is longer than "until the new one arrives" for gas safety, and useful for the others even where not strictly required.
• Treating right to rent evidence the same as everything else. Its one-year-after-tenancy rule is shorter than most landlords' default "keep everything" habit, but it is still a defined minimum worth tracking rather than assuming it never expires.
• Losing paper records in a move or a change of letting agent. Digital copies, backed up independently of any single agent's system, avoid records disappearing when an agency relationship ends.
• Assuming a managing agent is keeping records on your behalf. Confirm this explicitly and keep your own copies too, since the legal retention duty sits with you as the landlord regardless of who manages the property day to day.

How Property HQ helps

Property HQ stores every certificate, tenancy document and compliance record against the right property, with the dates you need already attached, so you are not relying on memory or a folder search when a retention question comes up years later. See our landlord certificates checklist for renewal frequencies alongside these retention periods.

Disclaimer

This guide is general information for UK landlords, not legal or tax advice. Retention periods can vary by circumstance and change over time. Check GOV.UK, HMRC or a qualified adviser for the specific requirements that apply to your situation.