landlord elec cert question?

paulsm

I have just had the guy round to do my elec cert as required (never had to have one befor so not sure of regs) , I have a split board and crabtree old type white with green writing , I have been told I will need to replace the 2 light 6a rcds with rcbo's but I have found out they dont do these for the old type , do I really need to bring these up to latest spec? or are they ok as they are? otherwise half the houses in the country would have to be redone for letting , hte spark said they were new regs in Jan

EdInvestor

Are you thinking of the EPC (Energy performance cert)?That's now a requirement, along with a Corgi Gas cert.

No elec cert required at this point AFAIK

Incisor

paulsm wrote: »

... spark said they were new regs in Jan

New regs for new work done after that date.

paulsm

there wasnt any new work done to the lighting circuit so it should comply?

subjecttocontract

There is no legal requirement to have an electrical safety certificate for rental property unless electrical work has been carried out.

Landlords do however have a duty to ensure that the property is electrically safe and without a certificate its going to be difficult to stand up in court and testify that the property was safe if it wasn't tested.

However, many letting agents will not accept management of your rental property unless you can produce an electrical safety certificate.

So, if you are not letting through an agent you do not need an electrical safety certificate.

stevetodd

subjecttocontract wrote: »

There is no legal requirement to have an electrical safety certificate for rental property unless electrical work has been carried out.

Landlords do however have a duty to ensure that the property is electrically safe and without a certificate its going to be difficult to stand up in court and testify that the property was safe if it wasn't tested.

However, many letting agents will not accept management of your rental property unless you can produce an electrical safety certificate.

So, if you are not letting through an agent you do not need an electrical safety certificate.

Yes you are correct the test if something bad happens is can you convince the court that you have acted professionally. I have read that a periodic test every 5 years would suffice. I am an ex time served electrician (many years ago as I am now an early retired chartered surveyor) I do however carry out an annual inpsection, type it up and can be produced in court, if something awful happened.

TJ27

There is definitely a legal requirement to have an electrical certificate if your house is a HMO. I ask landlords to produce periodic inspection reports all the time. So if it's a shared house, a student house for example, then you'll be needing one.

I'm no electrician, so as long as the PIR says "satisfactory" I accept it. There should be a list of any faults on the cert, graded from 1 (needs urgent attention) through to 4 I think. I think that if any code 1's are present then the cert will be marked as "unsatisfactory".

Generally these are valid for 5 years but I often see electricians recommending reinspection after a shorter time period, if the installation isn't in tip top condition. Basically the electrician states the time period for which they are valid, which sort of makes sense I think.

Incisor

subjecttocontract wrote: »

There is no legal requirement to have an electrical safety certificate for rental property unless electrical work has been carried out.

Landlords do however have a duty to ensure that the property is electrically safe and without a certificate its going to be difficult to stand up in court and testify that the property was safe if it wasn't tested.

However, many letting agents will not accept management of your rental property unless you can produce an electrical safety certificate.

So, if you are not letting through an agent you do not need an electrical safety certificate.

I think that what is at issue here is that the installation should not be failed or marked in any way 'unsatisfactory' for not complying with the latest standard for new work if it was installed correctly to an earlier standard and is still in good condition.