Landlords – what do you need to know about changes to electrical safety laws?

Landlords – what do you need to know about changes to electrical safety laws?

15:34 PM, 11th November 2015, About 8 years ago 15

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Landlords have the responsibility of keeping their tenants safe and electrical safety is a big part of this. In order to avoid fines and protect your tenants, be aware of changes to the latest legislation.electrical

Failure to keep electrical equipment such as light switches, microwaves and fuse boxes safe and in good condition can lead to fines, bans and even imprisonment.

Landlords in Scotland will soon be required to provide regular electrical installation condition report to tenants and it is expected that the new change will be subsequently implemented in England as well.

A spokesperson for Discount Landlord said: “Landlords have a responsibility to take care of their tenants and must ensure that their properties are in safe condition. Landlord insurance can assist against unforeseen damages, but it is important that the property is maintained.”

Here are the facts and changes that landlords need to know:

  1. Any electrical equipment that landlords provide must have a safety kite mark such as the CE logo which shows that a product meets EU standards.
  2. Landlords must also only use a registered electrician. There can be additional rules depending on where your BTL is located in the UK.
  3. Landlords in England and Wales are required to provide electrical installation certificates to show new equipment is safe but there is not a legal requirement to have it regularly inspected.
  4. Landlords must respond to any requests for repairs under the Landlord and Tenant Act and a claim could also be brought under the Consumer Protection Act if a property is found to be unsafe.
  5. A tenant who reports concerns about electrical equipment to the local council would lead to an enforcement officer visiting the property and making an order for changes. Failure to make the changes could result in fines or bans and will make it harder to evict a tenant.
  6. Landlords in Scotland Landlords must now have a compulsory Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) conducted every five years as a result of changes to The Housing (Scotland) Act 2006.
  7. Any tenant moving in from 1st December 2015 must be provided with Electrical Installation Certificates for any new fixtures or fittings that are installed. These can be obtained from a fully registered electrician. They must also provide a Portable Appliance Test for movable objects such as microwaves.
  8. Existing tenants must receive a copy of the EICR by 1st December 2016.

The charity Electrical Safety First has put together a checklist or landlords to monitor the equipment they provide. It can be accessed here: www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/mediafile/100114761/Landlords-Interim-Checklist-2014.pdf

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Comments

Isabel Stone

22:23 PM, 28th November 2017, About 6 years ago

Ahhhh this is a great article!! I love love it! Me and my husband have been looking into property development for a while now so it’s great to come across an article like this! Because he doesn’t actually have a pension, we’ve been thinking about using the property ladder instead as a type of monetary buffering when we come to retirement (if we even ever do). We’ve spent quite a lot of time thinking about and researching the different types of investments. Originally we were going to do student accommodation as that seemed like a sure fire winner, but I’ve read lots of articles and spoken to a few people, and it does seem like there can be some real problems at times with that kind of investment, which has admittedly put us off! And thenn we were going to do buy to let, but we’ve now been made aware of some of the pitfalls of that too! In fact I was reading an article that said there’s no longer any tax relief or anything for buy-to-let (this is the article: https://www.emergingproperty.co.uk/insights/btl-set-to-become-buy-to-lose/). So anyway buy to let is out the window at the minute! However we have actually been thinking about looking into serviced apartments as an investment. Has anyone else invested in this type of property? Tbh it didn’t really occur to us until after we’d actually stayed in one ourselves, and loveeddd it. It just seemed like the ideal type of investment, where we could even stay in ourselves at times (I want to get one by the beach now haha). Anyways I was kind of wondering if anyone A) had any pieces of advice for us about the whole property market thing in general as that’s always massively helpful! I mean is serviced apartments a good option? We’ve done a lot of research and reading it certainly appears to be! And if people do think it’s a good option then B) we’d love to know of any good places that we can invest in! Thank you everyone - we’re very much at sea here so any help or advice is incredibly appreciated x

AnthonyJames

13:10 PM, 29th November 2017, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Isabel Stone at 28/11/2017 - 22:23
Isabel, are you sure you're commenting on the right article? This article is about electrical safety laws, not property development. I'd also suggest that you post your queries as a new article, otherwise they are rather lost when posted just as a comment: they will only reach people already interested in this thread, not the whole user base of Property 118.

Rob Crawford

8:14 AM, 1st December 2017, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Claire Smith at 13/11/2015 - 16:57
Hi Clare, the latest standard does not require newly purchased new equipment to be PAT on initial installation. At installation however, a PAT programme should decided. The initial and subsequent frequency of testing is calculated on a risk (probability / impact ) basis and usually recommended by the tester (the standard will recommend testing frequency for most electrical items). PAT is not a legal requirement but providing safe electrical equipment is. PAT is the recognised means of testing portable and mobile electrical equipment to ensure this. The landlord / responsible person is ultimately responsible for safety. Unbiased info ref PAT and landlord responsibility is available on the HSE website.

Rob Crawford

8:18 AM, 1st December 2017, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Dave Princep at 12/11/2015 - 12:52
"Landlords do need to make sure their premises and any equipment they provide is safe" oh really!

Rob Crawford

8:26 AM, 1st December 2017, About 6 years ago

Reply to the comment left by Rob Crawford at 01/12/2017 - 08:18
Apologies = I read this with a "not" in it, probably a form of early morning dyslexia! Please ignore, Dave is correct.

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