Landlord & Property Glossary.

An EICR (Electrical Installation Condition Report) is a formal inspection of a property's fixed electrical installation — wiring, consumer unit, sockets and light fittings — carried out by a qualified electrician, legally required for every privately rented property in England and renewable at least every 5 years.

A CP12, formally the Landlord Gas Safety Record, is the certificate issued after a Gas Safe registered engineer inspects every gas appliance, flue and pipework in a rental property — a legal requirement every 12 months for any rental property with a gas supply.

Awaab's Law is the legal requirement for landlords to investigate reported damp and mould hazards and complete remedial works within fixed timeframes, introduced after the death of two-year-old Awaab Ishak from prolonged mould exposure — applying to social housing now and extending to private landlords from October 2026 under the Renters' Rights Act.

The HHSRS (Housing Health and Safety Rating System) is the risk-assessment method local authorities in England use to evaluate hazards in residential properties — including damp and mould, excess cold, fire and fall risks — scoring each hazard by the likelihood and severity of harm to occupants.

Fair wear and tear is the reasonable deterioration of a property and its contents through normal everyday use over the course of a tenancy — such as carpet wear in walkways, minor scuffs and faded paint — which a landlord cannot charge a departing tenant for.

Dilapidations are the repair, redecoration and reinstatement works a commercial tenant is contractually obliged to carry out at the end of a lease, returning the premises to the condition required by the lease — usually itemised by the landlord's surveyor in a schedule of dilapidations.

A void period is the stretch of time a rental property stands empty between one tenancy ending and the next beginning, during which the landlord receives no rent but continues to pay mortgage, insurance and council tax.

A periodic tenancy is a tenancy that rolls automatically from one rental period to the next — usually month to month — with no fixed end date, continuing until the tenant gives notice or the landlord obtains possession on a legal ground.

A Rent Repayment Order (RRO) is a tribunal order requiring a landlord to repay up to two years' rent to tenants or the local authority, made when the landlord has committed a qualifying offence such as operating an unlicensed HMO, illegal eviction, or failing to comply with an improvement notice.

The PRS Database is the new national register of private landlords and their rental properties in England, created by the Renters' Rights Act 2025, which landlords must join before marketing or letting a property once the scheme goes live during 2026.

Planned preventative maintenance (PPM) is a scheduled programme of property inspections, servicing and minor repairs carried out at set intervals — monthly, quarterly or annually — to prevent larger faults developing, extend the life of building components and keep a property legally compliant, as opposed to reactive maintenance which waits for something to fail before acting.

Hot-water extraction — often called steam cleaning — is a carpet cleaning method that injects heated water and cleaning solution deep into the carpet pile under pressure, then immediately extracts it along with embedded dirt, allergens and staining, and is the deep-cleaning method recommended by most carpet manufacturers.