Landlords electrical safety checks.

ronnyb

From 1st April rented properties must have an electrical safety check every 5 years similar to the gas safety check which is annually. So far have rung about 4 different local electricians and either they're too busy or can't be bothered with them, too much trouble etc. Anybody else having the same issues.

joneve

ronnyb said:

From 1st April rented properties must have an electrical safety check every 5 years similar to the gas safety check which is annually. So far have rung about 4 different local electricians and either they're too busy or can't be bothered with them, too much trouble etc. Anybody else having the same issues.

I got an email about this via OpenRent (who I use to advertise and manage my tenancy)...Fortunately we got one done 3 years ago just prior to our current tenants moving in. however, I never received the cert - so the email prompted me to follow up. Fortunately it was a friend of mine who did the testing and got the office for the company he works for to pull the cert off their database and email over, so I'm now "officially" covered until November 2022. 

Bonkers that electricians are claiming that it's too much trouble, since it's a legal requirement! 

spark240

The issue here is that the real cost for a wiring inspection can run into a few hundred pounds, but there are outfits out there doping them for less than £100, but what you get isnt worth what its written on,...however on the face of it you have a " cert".....EICR are a pain for most sparks, they just not interested,.

With all of the covid stuff flying around there are a load of  potential reasons why there is a delay, I would suggest at best you get them booked in for asap , at least you have been proactive. 

ICBM

Presumably it's like PAT testing - it's actually quite time-consuming to really do it properly, so if you charge for that much time it's ridiculously expensive and you'll either get no work or be accused of ripping the customer off. Or you can do a quick one for a nominal rate which means a cursory check that ticks the boxes but actually doesn't guarantee safety, and then exposes the tester to liability if something does go wrong later. Or, you can avoid the problem by simply not taking that sort of work.

(That's why I don't do stand-alone PAT testing, ie if it's not part of other work which involves a full internal inspection anyway.)

Headphones

or, like every leccy I've met in the building trade, they'll tell you it's not quite up to the current standard and they can fix it for you for £500 (or random ever increasing number).

There may be no actual faults but it really needs to be fixed, as it's not safe.  Honest, that's why the standard's changed.

I have spent far too much of my life correcting their shoddy work and correcting this sort of dishonest blather.

Where is such a thing as an honest, competent leccy?

Are my scars showing?

Rob1742

I’m currently going through this, and it’s extremely costly.
Around £160 for the check and certificate, but if there are problems it can go to really high prices.

I have 30 plus properties and so far it’s ranged from £160 to £2800 per property, with many needing new boards at £450/£600 a shot. The £2800 is for a rewire

boogieman

Rob1742 said:

I’m currently going through this, and it’s extremely costly.
Around £160 for the check and certificate, but if there are problems it can go to really high prices.

I have 30 plus properties and so far it’s ranged from £160 to £2800 per property, with many needing new boards at £450/£600 a shot. The £2800 is for a rewire

£2800 is actually fairly cheap for a full rewire, the average price is around £3.5-4k now according to a family member who’s a sparky. Crazy really considering the bits are cheaper now than they’ve ever been... you can buy light switches for under a quid, 13A sockets for around £3 and a decent quality fully populated fuse board for well under £100. I can remember doing my own place in the 90s and the MCBs alone were around a tenner each. 

Snap

We got it through British Gas, think it was about 240. Local sparky does it for a similar amount. IMO, it's better to be safe,

ronnyb

Got a quote from a local firm yesterday, £185 plus vat.

Dominic

 ^  That's about the right price
It's a bit like taking car for MOT ;if you go looking for trouble then trouble will find you
I .E. ....you can always find things that are not compatible with current regs standard (19th edition )  -where people are easily upsold unnecessary work is with the bullshit that there is a big difference between a C1 class danger item and a C3/C4 "recommendation" that is perfectly non-essential.
Any electrician who doesn't want to do an EICR is a short-sighted fool who is throwing away good leads .
Some managing agent friends in London have been approached by big electrical firms that will do batches of 20 EICR tests for £50 per property especially because they know it's a great source of future work.

Dominic

Rob1742 said:

I’m currently going through this, and it’s extremely costly.
Around £160 for the check and certificate, but if there are problems it can go to really high prices.

I have 30 plus properties and so far it’s ranged from £160 to £2800 per property, with many needing new boards at £450/£600 a shot. The £2800 is for a rewire

It can be costly just like a re-roof , new guttering , redecorating etc etc
As a "professional" Landlord it is your business / investment and to resent the expense is like a shopkeeper saying he wont bother to fit a good security system because it's costly ;you have to protect and enhance your "stock".
 As a professional you will be sure to buy wisely and make your bid offers taking such defficiency into account in the purchase price. 
 The important fact is that a leaky roof can only make somebody wet whereas unsafe electrics coukd kill them or their child.
It's a matter of diligence and duty of care to ensure that such an item is bulletproof.
A rewire for £2800 is incredibly cheap .
I am from a property background ......if you saw the draconian new HMO requirements for license you would realise that a bit of electrical is a mere grain of sand on a very big beach.

Longtallronnie

I can’t believe it’s taken so long for this to come into place. I also never understood landlord’s reluctance to have their properties properly checked. Well, other than greed. 

I used to work as a sparky and the local letting agents would always ask for a “visual check” at change of tenancy which we tried to explain is pretty much pointless. We used to charge £90 + VAT for a full EICR about ten years ago, not a horrendous amount to make sure the property is safe imo.