Correct Paperwork for Tenanted Property after UKPN call-out for EICR?

As I understand it, an EICR (and Electrical Installation Condition Report - as distinct from an EIC which is an electrical installation certificate) should suffice for the agent. If the DNO has provided sufficient information for your electrician to be happy then he should be able to issue a satisfactory EICR.

  - Andy.

Cheers Andy, just to be clear, when I wrote EIC above, I did mean EIC. Are you suggesting that the electrician should up-issue the EICR?


How did they manage to invent/require two forms with nearly the same initials?!

There is nothing in the regulations that requires an EIC.  Any bit of paper from the electrician that could be described as a "report" is sufficient.  Unfortunately, you seem to have a "jobsworth" of a letting agent.

Thanks Simon. That's exactly what my electrician says, excepting that the "bit of paper", ie the email, is issued by UKPN not him, since it was they who did - and I understand must do - the safety check.


I daresay the letting agents - who nowadays operate very much as a call centre - are relying on an internal procedure or something.

Gideon:

Cheers Andy, just to be clear, when I wrote EIC above, I did mean EIC. Are you suggesting that the electrician should up-issue the EICR?

If the agent is asking for an EIC as the result of an inspection then they're deluded. EICs can only be issued as the result of a piece of electrical installation work (including design & inspection/test) and then they can only cover the actual work done - not any existing installation,  For existing installations an EICR is the only appropriate document. Yes if your electrician felt that some information necessary for issuing an EICR was missing and has now been provided - the sensible thing to my mind is for EICR to be re-issued as amended. It is the EICR the legislation effectively requires.


(I am sort of side-stepping the issue that the wiring regs strictly speaking don't cover the supplier's equipment - so there might be an argument that a problem there shouldn't affect the result of an EICR - even though checking the supplier's equipment is on the EICR checklist - from a common sense point of view it is reasonable to make sure everything is OK).

 

How did they manage to invent/require two forms with nearly the same initials?!

Oh, it's amazing what you can come up with given the right committee...


    - Andy.

Especially as the EICR used to be a PIR (Periodic Inspection Report) but people kept confusing it with the sensor that detects movement so it had to be changed. ?

EICRs are reports on the condition of an installation on the day it was done, signed and dated. I think it unfair to ask the electrician to issue a new EICR at a later date without checking that nothing has changed in the interim, it is extra time and expense which is totally unnecessary. It could be up to 28 days since the report was issued, the time in which any remedial works should have been completed. All that is needed is that there is a "paper" trail, to prove that any required remedial work or, more likely in this case, that "further Investigation" was done. A covering note from the electrician saying he now believes any code on the EICR is now not relevant should suffice. But to issue a new "satisfactory" EICR up to a month after testing/inspecting seems a bit much to ask.

You can see why managing agents want a "satisfactory" EICR, it is one document that they can email to a tenant if asked for it, not possibly a folder full of different pieces of information. But that is their preference, and it is not a requirement of the legislation.

Before the Inspection schedule was mucked about with and a "visual" for suppliers equipment was included in the model form for EICR, any observation you would make, visually, on a perceived deficiency in suppliers equipment, was conveyed strongly in writing to the person ordering the EICR. You would also be best advised to repeat the warning as an informative in the Report. So something you were not sure about or looked a bit odd with the supply equipment, would not necessarily be akin to a FI or code 2, but you would state a C3 to cover your self.  However, of course, if the danger was very real and apparent, such as melting/burning/access to live parts, you would abort the Inspection as, obviously, it was not safe to proceed, until the DNO, or whatever, fixed it. You would not want it to be eventually going bang whilst you were doing some actual test with instruments.


Of course, now, the new model forms present you with a stop/go for something outside of BS7671. So you have to code it within our limited knowledge of what looks normal in respect of supply equipment. So for example, I have recently observed an FI for a very weird looking bulge in the side of a PILC supply cable. The client called the DNO who sent a jointer to assess it. They deemed the cable safe and confirmed that in writing, in an email. For all interested parties, that email confirmed that the FI had been rectified, as the entity that owned and maintained that equipment said it was safe.


OlympusMons has just posted before I finished this and makes a good point on what "Agents Expect". This "satisfactory report" business was driven by letting agents and has been used by the nuckle draggers as a method of circumnavigating  electrical installation work being installed to the current standard. It gives them a commercial advantage.


There is a lower bar for in-service verification.....would you install new work that clearly would be deemed "requires improvement" the following week by someone else doing an EICR?  


  I would say, in the OPs case, this Agent is a little more up to speed on what is actually required and the mistake is blindly insisting on an EIC as  the only accepted form of "written confirmation". At least they are not insisting on a "satisfactory EICR"; that is a welcome improvement. Little steps, at a time, in the right direction.


So where the Report [EICR] returns a C1/C2/FI , the following kicks in:


(5) Where paragraph (4) applies, a private landlord must—


(a)obtain written confirmation from a qualified person that the further investigative or remedial work has been carried out and that—

****(i)the electrical safety standards are met; or    ****  this simply means that where your remedial work involved new wiring, then being minor works or installation works, you certified those particular works as being installed to BS7671, usually in the form of a Minor Works or Electrical Installation certificate[s].

(ii)further investigative or remedial work is required;


(b)supply that written confirmation, together with a copy of the report under sub-paragraph (3)(a) which required the further investigative or remedial work to each existing tenant of the residential premises within 28 days of completion of the further investigative or remedial work; and


(c)supply that written confirmation, together with a copy of the report under sub-paragraph (3)(a) which required the further investigative or remedial work to the local housing authority within 28 days of completion of the further investigative or remedial work.


My emphasis is is in bold above, with a comment ***  . As already stated by a previous post, that EICR [Report] stays as it is. It is Original, it is part of the process of the "specified tenancy" and should not be superceded or "magicked away". 


This is early days in the new rental regime. Some [Badgers] Chickens are likely to come home to roost in five years time, when it is due for the next EICR and, if it is obviously beyond doubt that the last bit of paperwork was simply a blunt form of absolution of all sins for commercial gain or someones loss, there is going to be an embarrassing mess to sort out.