Building Regulations

andyward82

Hello. Can anyone help?
Some time ago I decided to have a second bathroom in my house. Toilet, sink, shower cubicle. It was directly on top of another bathroom downstairs and the floorboards were not even down in that room when I decided to have it done. I was told I didn't need building regs as the floorboards were not lifted, no structural work was carried out etc. I began the process. An electrician friend (massively qualified and experienced) put in a fan and a couple of low voltage LEDs. Halfway through the project I remortgaged for a better deal. They sent round a surveyor who spotted the half done bathroom. He asked if I had building regs. I said I didn't realise I needed some. He said I do so I wrote to the council. Bloke comes over, has a look and admits he doesn't really know why he's there. Then says "ooh who fitted that fan?", I said "an electrician", he says "do you have the certification?", I said "I don't think so". Anyway, I get insurance and the mortgage goes through.

Now, 2 years later (for financial reasons I have only just finished the bathroom). I'm selling the house. I realise this is going to come up so I'm trying to get the building regs signed off before it holds up my sale. I contact Milton Keynes Council who have said it HAS to have been installed by someone in the CPS scheme. If it is they can retrospectively sign it off. If it wasn't then they have to send round their own SPECIFIC electrician who will test and sign off but I have no choice who - it HAS to be their SPECIFIC electrician - for the price of £290.

Does anyone have experience with this? Are they legally okay to do this? Seems a little like extortion to me? I have friends who are actually in this CPS scheme and the MK Council person has told me that they cannot be used to carry out these checks.

Am I right to be annoyed? Or is it tough titties?

Rusty_Shackleton

I'm sure someone with more knowledge will have better input, but I think you can just take out an indemnity policy as the vendor - when we bought our house the vendors had to do so for a few things, including windows due to not having a FENSA certificate. I think the policy cost them all of about £30.

Dan-Dan

Cost depends, example no gas install notifcation 6 years ago someone i know, indemnity £160

andyward82

Well my problem isn't really with the indemnity, it's with MK Council forcing me to use 1 specific electrician to certify the work. I feel this is verging on extortion to be fair...

Davesnave

Some buyers might prefer proper certification than a bit of paper indemnifying them against legal stuff.

andyward82

Davesnave wrote: »

Some buyers might prefer proper certification than a bit of paper indemnifying them against legal stuff rather than electrocution.

This is exactly why I'm trying to get everything signed off. My problem is MK Council insisting that a fully qualified electrician - even one on their CPS scheme - isn't good enough to do the testing. It has to be carried out by ONE SPECIFIC electrician. How can this be legal?

Rusty_Shackleton

Davesnave wrote: »

Some buyers might prefer proper certification than a bit of paper indemnifying them against legal stuff rather than electrocution.

Any buyer worrying about electrical work done years previously being a serious risk is going to find an endless list of things wrong with every house they look at, and won't be a serious buyer anyway!

Rusty_Shackleton

andyward82 wrote: »

This is exactly why I'm trying to get everything signed off. My problem is MK Council insisting that a fully qualified electrician - even one on their CPS scheme - isn't good enough to do the testing. It has to be carried out by ONE SPECIFIC electrician. How can this be legal?

I think you could be misunderstanding what they're saying, i.e. are they saying if you want the councils building control to sign off the work, this is their subcontractor and the price. The alternative is to source your own qualified electrician who can self-certify the work (although it's my understanding electricians aren't generally keen on checking someone elses work.)

Have you been told you must have the work signed off at all? I'd be inclined to tell the council you had a certificate but don't know where it is and just go with an indemnity policy that you'll probably have to buy for other issues anyway!

andyward82

Rusty_Shackleton wrote: »

I think you could be misunderstanding what they're saying, i.e. are they saying if you want the councils building control to sign off the work, this is their subcontractor and the price. The alternative is to source your own qualified electrician who can self-certify the work (although it's my understanding electricians aren't generally keen on checking someone elses work.)

Have you been told you must have the work signed off at all? I'd be inclined to tell the council you had a certificate but don't know where it is and just go with an indemnity policy that you'll probably have to buy for other issues anyway!

I have had an electrician spend an entire day at my house and has done a full safety certificate and an EICS (I think that's what it was) certificate which he told me would be more than enough. But no. The council guy is saying no. and I can't have anyone else except their specific guy to check and certify the work.

It's only two 9v LED lights and a fan. It'd be cheaper to take it all out and get my guy to put new ones in then certify it.

I don't understand how their specific electrician over-rules everyone else in the UK and how the people I know can't do the same checks and certifications that this bloke is going to do?

onomatopoeia99

andyward82 wrote: »

This is exactly why I'm trying to get everything signed off. My problem is MK Council insisting that a fully qualified electrician - even one on their CPS scheme - isn't good enough to do the testing. It has to be carried out by ONE SPECIFIC electrician. How can this be legal?

Round my way building regs for inspecting electrical work is over £400, so you're getting a bargain.



If you had used and competent person to do the electrical install it might have cost less than the inspection fee.


It's entirely legal, this is "regularisation" which can only be carried out by the local authority.

Ectophile

The problem is that you will struggle to find any qualified electrician who will issue an Electrical Installation Certificate or Minor Works Certificate for somebody else's work.


What you have is Electrical Installation Condition Report, which isn't the same thing. The electrician has no way to check the quality of any work they can't see.



When you get building work done, you have two correct ways of going about it.

• Employ someone who is a member of a scheme that allows them to self-certify their own work. They do the work, fill out the paperwork, and a copy of that paperwork gets lodged with the council.
• Pay the council an inspection fee up-front. Get anyone you like to do the work, then allow the council to send someone round to inspect it.

Most councils don't have an electrician on their payroll. So if you go for the second route, then they send round an electrician that they trust to do the inspection.


Your council are saying that they will retrospectively do an inspection, but only if you pay the fee and allow their trusted electrician to look at it.


Alternatively, if your new electrician is a member of one of the schemes, they could re-wire the room themselves, then sign it off.