New Regulations Are Coming into Force Regarding Electrical Wiring In Tenanted Properties

Every business owner or operator is required under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 to ensure that not only all the electrical appliances and pieces of equipment that staff have to use are safe, but the actual wiring in the building is as well. Testing the equipment is known as PAT testing (Portable Appliance Testing), while testing the wiring and other fixed appliances, such as a heated towel rail, hard-wired smoke alarms, or an electric cooker, come under the heading of EICR – an Electrical Installation Condition Report - which is also known as Fixed Wire Testing. A qualified engineer will undertake fixed wire testing, and after thorough testing if everything is in order, will issue fixed wire testing certificates.

New regulations come into force on July 1st this year which will now require landlords to maintain electrical safety in their properties and, if required, to be able to show evidence of this. That means that any rented property must meet the requirements of the 18th edition of the Wiring Regulations and that landlords need to have fixed wire testing certificates from a qualified engineer in order to prove it. 

There is a problem here, in that this does not allow for a qualified engineer to confirm that a property is safe if they do not meet these standards. This is because, although a landlord may have taken every care to ensure the safety of tenants and have an EICR to prove it, the property may still not meet the latest requirements for the simple reason that they did not exist at the time, as the 18th edition is a very recent publication. This could mean substantial alterations to the property.

According to the Residential Landlords Association, the new regulations are aimed at the 22% of landlords who fail to have the electrical installations of their property inspected. The advice of the RLA to landlords who do have an EICR is to wait for further guidance before undertaking any expensive, and possibly unnecessary, alterations to their property. No doubt, further information will be available in due course.