New EICR to cover any changes made by outgoing tenant?

Reply to the comment left by Daveknowstheregs at 01/01/2022 - 14:26
Could you please direct me to the regulations that require (1) a rental property to be checked at least annually and (2) a new EICR on change of occupancy.

Hi "Seething Landlord" Well, I can try my best for your benefit. In June of 2021 I have paid £1580 for the 2391-52 City and Guilds inspection and testing course, all about this very subject. You can either do the same as me, or you can read the regulations book, if you buy it for about £25 online. To save you this money and time, I will actually quote from what I learned in 2021. Here goes, quoting directly from my £1580 college coursework and directly from my £25 regulations book. Reading P.87 of Guidance Note 3, Inspection & Testing, 18th Edition IET Wiring Regulations BS7671:2018, table 3.2 says that for domestic rental houses and flats, a routine check should be carried out every 1 year. Also, the maximum period between inspections and testing (EICR) should be change of occupancy or 5 years. Then it refers you to relevant guidance notes from legal documentation, including The Landlord & Tenant Act 1985, The Electrical Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations (as amended) The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, Regulation 4 and Memorandum of guidance (HSR25) published by HSE.

You can ignore the law, of course, but at your own risk. You are the responsible owner of the property.

Reply to the comment left by Daveknowstheregs at 01/01/2022 - 20:27
Thanks for your reply. The distinction between industry recommendations and legal requirements has previously been debated at length, but please note the following from the IET website FAQs:

"IET Guidance Note 3, Section 3.7, Table 3.2 provides some useful information regarding recommended initial frequencies of inspection of electrical installations. It’s important to note that these are recommendations and not legal requirements."

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 01/01/2022 - 21:03
"IET Guidance Note 3, Section 3.7, Table 3.2 provides some useful information regarding recommended initial frequencies of inspection of electrical installations. It’s important to note that these are recommendations and not legal requirements."

So consider when a tenant dies due to an electrical installation fault, that an EICR would of highlighted. A judge would then simply ignore the recommended frequencies of EICRs in the wiring regulations? The landlord is then deemed innocent by the judge, provided that an EICR is done every 5 years, regardless of the amount of change of occupancy? The landlord’s insurance company would then cover all legal fees and accept full liability? Is that all correct?

Reply to the comment left by Daveknowstheregs at 01/01/2022 - 22:54
The relevant legislation, which for some reason you have not mentioned, is The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, under which the overriding requirement is:

"3.—(1) A private landlord(1) who grants or intends to grant a specified tenancy must—

(a)ensure that the electrical safety standards are met during any period when the residential premises(2) are occupied under a specified tenancy;"

The requirements about inspection and obtaining a report are additional to this and do not modify it. You could have an inspection and new EICR every week and still be in breach of 3(1)(a) if something went wrong in between.

3(1)(a) says nothing about "taking reasonable steps" to ensure...i.e it imposes strict liability.

I am not sure what you are getting at when you refer to what a judge or insurer might do. Are you thinking about criminal responsibility, civil liability or compliance with policy conditions? Different considerations apply and each case will in any event be decided on its merits, but compliance with the inspection requirements in the Regulations is likely to be the standard against which "acting reasonably" is judged if that were an issue.

Reply to the comment left by Seething Landlord at 02/01/2022 - 00:24
As an electrician, I am perfectly entitled to put a 1 year limit on an EICR, if I choose it relevant. If the installation has obvious signs of neglect and premature deterioration, barely passing the test results, with the landlord not wanting to pay for the installation's safety to be improved. This 5 years so called legislation is a myth. Pie in the sky. Ultimately, it is up the the qualified electrician carrying out the EICR to choose the date his EICR covers. Some electricians will try to avoid losing the custom, but legally the landlord has no say in this matter. The landlord can go elsewhere, ignoring the safety recommendations completely, in the hope of a less than thorough approach from a different electrician, who needs the money. This, of course, results in lowering electrical safety standards, increasing risks, but the landlord gets his "pass" and so maybe it is, probably, "safe enough".

It's when a tenant dies that the real law actually begins and it's then up to the judge.

I think the law of probability comes very useful, if it wasn't, I would wrap myself in cotton wool and never go out of the house for fear of being stabbed to death, get run over by a bus, get smashed by a cyclist riding on pavements, catch covid-19 in 2022, after having been vaccinated with 3 jabs of Pfizer, get a tyre blow out on a motorway doing 70mph, holding a knife in my hand and slipped in a precarious way that ends up me stabbing myself, by a mirror falling off in a shop and crushing me to death, can somebody please do my shopping for me, stay at home and not carry out any tenants inspections for fear of being kicked to death by an aggressive tenant, there are millions of reasons to die, electrical safety is least important, more people get stabbed to death in London alone that those died of electrical shock. By the way not many Electricians know this that electrical energy does not flow in wires, they would not have known this fact if I had not said this here. Something for you to think, and search on Google and YouTube.
So if my tenants leave, I will do some basic checks, one is suppose to push a test button on your RCD device regularly, kind of on a monthly bases, its written on some RCBs to test its function regularly, that is why they provide a button, these days majority of installations have to comply with RCD protection, there is a good chance a tenant might get run over by a double Decker than dies due to faulty untested and uncertified installation.
According to me, if a tenant tampers with electrics, he should be prosecuted and the same rule should apply where a tenant who is not qualified Gas Safe Engineer or anyone for that matter should not touch gas work, same way put it in your tenancy agreement that any major electrical problems a tenant must notify the landlord.

I used an electrical company for some work, then also recommended them to another landlord, of which I made them aware. They were very grateful for the business, as it was immediately post Lockdown.
Shortly afterwards, I asked them to do an EICR for me.
They gave a certificate for 5 years or change of tenancy. ( which in that type of property is generally quite often. )
I told the company to either change or give me a new cert for 5 years, or they would have no more business from me.
That seemed to make them see sense.
All Landlords need to query the length of an EICR BEFORE they contract to have the EICR.
Some electricians, as has been posted on here, are ripping the @r$e out of the Regulations.

Reply to the comment left by Daveknowstheregs at 02/01/2022 - 01:16
All that I asked was for you to identify the regulations that require an annual check and a new EICR on change of occupancy. You have responded by referring to the table in GN3 but IET make it clear that the recommendations are not legal requirements, so the question remains unanswered.

Reply to the comment left by Daveknowstheregs at 02/01/2022 - 01:16
I used to be of the same opinion as you, but after a long debate with Seething Landlord, we were able to conclude what is actually required.
Ultimately Seething Landlord is correct. If you read our posts you will see it unfold. You’ll see I’m completely of your persuasion at the beginning, but an article published by the NRLA advises ‘at change of occupancy’ was not what the MHCLG intended. And if you have NAPIT EICR Codebreakers 18th Edition. Read Section 3, page 83. Frequency of Next Inspection. You’ll see NAPIT’s interpretation is; it’s the responsible persons job to decide the frequency. As I’m with NAPIT, I’ll follow this. But if you are with another CPS, maybe see what their take is.