EICR has thrown a complete spanner in the works?

Unfotunately I had the same problem. only thing is if landlords can share the names of honest Electrician

I used to be a sparky many years ago before we built the portfolio up and started developing too.. I now use my own (subby) electrician as I'm not part P compliant, the only property I use a letting agency for thus their own electrician for is 100miles away, and my word he/they were indeed a licence to print money. Eg, the rusty socket back box £75 to replace was in fact just a rusty plate fixing screw-50p. A cracked pendant cap at £35 to replace was a £1 item, unscrew the old one screw in the new one. The list went on and on.. In the end I took my own electrician to the property on a day rate, and he did all the items on the list labour £250/materials £150 v £1200plus vat from the agency's chap...These guys seem charge by the 'item' so each point seems plausible until you add them all up-ie no scale of numbers. So in my view find an electrician with a day rate (£250-350) that can work through the list...

Rusty back boxes seem to be something that gets a lot of mentions recently - I had a 2 year certificate because of it recently, although the sparky seems happy to replace with plastic to stop it happening again. It's a Victorian terraced property and the sockets are on a kitchen party wall, which I rather doubt has a damp issue, particularly as the property had a complete injected DPC before I bought it!

The electrician should be part of a competent person scheme otherwise they can't issue certificates, report your concerns to the scheme they is registered with, or even trading standard s

Reply to the comment left by at 14/04/2021 - 17:17
Great idea. Perhaps one for Property118 to have a directory?

Hi Julie. The same thing has happened to me - I am on record as saying that in my opinion the whole situation is corrupt and in many cases crooked. I am a surveyor with over 50 years experience in property management and I have never seen anything like this before. The main problem is that the authority who has drawn up the requirements is also the body who an electrician has to belong, in order to undertake the inspection. My most recent encounter was with an electrician who claimed lots of a particular system came into the C1 and C2 category - there has never been a problem with the system no one has ever been hurt by the system which is in a relatively new bungalow - about 18 years old, but the electrician still wanted to charge just on £1300 to make it safe - I calculated the time and materials involved and it was closer to £800 including an allowance of £100 for pure profit, I wont say more on this but you have a system where the poacher is also the game keeper. Every few years [sometimes annually] the regulatory body brings in another edition, its great for keeping their members employed, a few years ago we were ripping out metal consumer units owning to the possibility of electric shock in order to put plastic ones back in, now because plastic ones burn we are back to putting metal ones back in again - I appreciate the inner workings are improved but it is way over the top. I have been dealing with the regulatory authority for many years and have very little respect for them. You can bet your life that after 5 years they will have come up with another set of regulations meaning the current work undertaken will be obsolete and replaced by the requirement for further alterations. For what it is worth I have come across a few honest electricians who have not seen easy money but most (including some I have known for years who I also thought were honest) have found a way to relieve me of not less than £700 per property rising to £1500 per property, when the system was perfectly useable and safe but just did not fully comply with the latest edition of the regulations. I am generally disgusted by the whole situation which to be quite frank smells to me!!

Same here. Tenants informed me that the electrician spend half his time looking at the consumer unit and going for breaks. A max 1 hr job was spun out to half a day. I've written to him expressing my concerns. but have yet to get a reply. Another scam is the continuity tests whi h failed o 2 circuits in a new built. I'm convinced that they loosen the wires to cause this to happen and it becomes a fail on the report. One guy wanted to charge me £500 to sort it out the same guy who did the report.

Reply to the comment left by at 14/04/2021 - 17:17
I've used Ellies electrician in London. They by far are the most reasonable

I had 5 to do. I used 1 guy for two properties, he was very slow both doing the inspections and in producing eventually after some works a pass certificate, he also did not turn up on a couple of occasions. So I Sacked him. My regular electrician was fitting a new electrical heating system for me so I got him to do the eicr whilst he was there. I got someone else to do the final two, He was quick and efficient but a bit expensive, and he only found 1 fault ,a tenant had painted over 5 double sockets in the kitchen. lessons learnt. 1. If your electrician is causing you any grief get someone else, they all vary so much. 2. You do not always have to have a new type fusebox. Total cost including fault fixing 3 new fuse boxes and vat ,about £1300. Kent.

I had a good experience using a large firm. I have 10 properties was was charged £118 for each of the initial inspections. Five passed with no work at all required and the other five new consumer units and one or two of the others a few extra bits. The cost of those five were between £500 and £800. Very efficient company certificates supplied by e-mail within a couple of days of completion.