Am I being fleeced on EICR?

Am I being fleeced on EICR?

0:01 AM, 4th September 2024, About 2 months ago 14

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Hi, I recently rented out my property to a well-known high street letting agent in London. The old tenants had left and the previous letting agent was retiring. I’ve owned the property for some years.

New tenants have just moved in. Prior to the let, the new agent asked me for my EICR which had about 10 months left to run. The agent said they would like me to have another EICR done with their electrician and said my electrician was not on the list and did not consider him valid. They implied he must have been a cowboy.

Since I was not able to contact my previous electrician, I took this at face value and the new letting agent’s electrician came in. I got a fail and a £1470 bill for a new consumer unit. The old consumer unit had modern RCD’s and had passed 4 years before. So I was surprised but paid up as I was only given a few days before the new tenant was due to move in.

Now the new tenant is saying that the immersion heater and hob are both independently tripping the new consumer unit and the agent is saying both appliances may need replacing. This is an all-electric flat with storage heaters and there is huge potential here for an electrician to gradually replace everything in the flat. How do I stop this from being never ending electrical work?

Am I being paranoid or am I the subject of a fleecing exercise? If the latter, what can I do about it given that the tenants have no hot water and no hob because the unit keeps tripping.

Thanks,

Robert


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David Mensah

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9:37 AM, 7th September 2024, About 2 months ago

Unfortunately this kind of scam is quite common -- it's easy due to asymmetric information which is particularly pronounced with electrics.

I've even had an electrician come in for a cert who admitted to a tenant that his job was to look for as many things he could charge for as possible-- not surprisingly he came back with a long list of spurious things. It is extremely irritating and time-consuming.

One reason it is good to have good relationships with local tradesmen;

EECLondon

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23:17 PM, 7th September 2024, About 2 months ago

You can check online to confirm if the original electrical contractor is part of Competent Person Scheme (CPS) to work on domestic type installations. If so you could send both certificates to the accreditation organization such as NICEIC or NAPIT to see which company's certificate or EICR report reasonably represents the requirements of BS7671. If people produce a report for commercial gain only and not safety then you may have a case under Consumers Rights Act 2015. The estate agents cannot dictate which company you use as long as the company is accredited on a CPS register. You don't have to use their approved list.

Timmo

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12:50 PM, 8th September 2024, About 2 months ago

EICRs are the biggest rip off invented. They are an open checkbook to electricians who will nearly always find a failure in order to generate work and once a very questionable failure is given you are stuffed. It is about time that the electrical governing bodies did something to stop incorrect C2's being given. The consumer unit failures are a classic example.

Fed Up Landlord

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17:53 PM, 8th September 2024, About 2 months ago

Yep. Ripped off. 20% at least kickback off the sparky to the agent. And if it still had 10 months to go I would have told them to go away.

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