Renting out a house, agent wants us to move all plug sockets

Comedy

Thanks all for the advice. It was very much along the lines of what I thought; That this isn't a requirement and the agent making this work a requirement for their sevices is not right. They turned up a good amount of stuff on this report, most of which was easy enough to fix when I went over on the weekend but I'm going to leave it to my GF to decide whether or not she will look for a new agent. Annoyingly they have a tenant due to move in on the 1st so would be the whole process again with someone else.

[Deleted User]

Are you in England/Wales or Scotland?

I believe the electrical safety requirements for landlords have already been introduced. Although I'm taking that from info I've picked up on these forums so take with appropriate amount of salt

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser

I got EICRs for 2 of my rental properties (required for new landlord license from council) last summer.

Both properties have multiple plug points which are lower than 50cm from ground level but wasn't mentioned as something to be rectified.

Owain_Moneysaver

Deleted_User wrote: »

Are you in England/Wales or Scotland?

I believe the electrical safety requirements for landlords have already been introduced. Although I'm taking that from info I've picked up on these forums so take with appropriate amount of salt

Yes, but that only requires an EICR with defects remedied.

Sockets height is not, of itself, a defect under IET Wiring Regs.

Comedy

Deleted_User wrote: »

Are you in England/Wales or Scotland?

I believe the electrical safety requirements for landlords have already been introduced. Although I'm taking that from info I've picked up on these forums so take with appropriate amount of salt

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Yes, but that only requires an EICR with defects remedied.

Sockets height is not, of itself, a defect under IET Wiring Regs.

I spoke to the electrician that did the EICR myself today, he was really helpful with the whole thing - a lot more so than the agent.

I went over the work I'd done so (blanking some sockets, replacing a socket housing, some mini trunking, terminating some wires that lead outside) he told me that the C2's for the 'too low sockets' were not to meet regs but because they did not give clearance for a wire coming out of a plug. I get where he is coming from on it as some are very low. He told me he didn't mention 500mm to the agent so maybe they have deduced this themselves to be able to pass me on a reason.

Anyway, I think the agent is out of line in holding up the let due to this and in the way they tried to just pass on a £600 bill for repairs of what is basically 'nothing work'. The majority of the things raised I dealt with myself in the time it took to drink two teas, the sockets are all that's left.

The electrician suggested just blanking the existing sockets and spurring each one above a bit with some mini trunking rather than chasing it in to the wall, and said that would remedy it in his opinion and would allow him to give it the OK on the EICR. I am considering doing this one myself as there are 8 or 9 sockets to do and electricians rates for such a simple job would be much higher than worthwhile.

I did drop in the possibility of turning them upside down before his next visit but he wasn't up for it

markin

If you've done it before it would be a 10/20 min job per socket to chase up and fix the back box, and let the spark crimp and extend the wires.

Or swapping the socket to a single access box and use maintenance free Wagos to join it yourself.

Doing it properly would be better when you finally sell.

G_M

Think you need a new agent........



* Letting agents: how should a landlord select or sack?

theartfullodger

phill99 wrote: »

Letting Agents: The only 'profession' that has no barriers to entry, requires no knowledge to practice and are morally bankrupt.
.............

"Only"?? I can think of at least one other, often called the oldest... (perhaps not the moral bankruptcy, albeit that would be true of their clients).

Comedy

markin wrote: »

If you've done it before it would be a 10/20 min job per socket to chase up and fix the back box, and let the spark crimp and extend the wires.

Or swapping the socket to a single access box and use maintenance free Wagos to join it yourself.

Doing it properly would be better when you finally sell.

Yeah, I'm going to go over there tomorrow and, new back boxes, trunk from old to new and blank the old.

G_M wrote: »

Think you need a new agent........



* Letting agents: how should a landlord select or sack?

Me and you both know this. Sadly not my choice