more amusingly, if I know your van registration, so can I ;-)  What I cannot do is see where you had it done to work out where you live. On a related website I can also see if the vehicle is taxed, but not who owns it.

Police of course have rather more detailed access, such as owner, keeper, list of  insured drivers, all their adresses  etc, as they need that to do their job.

i wonder if they also have a list of garages suspected of a surprisinly lenient appproach to MOTs and so forth ? They certainly exist and are known to those in the trade. A few of the more fantastically blatent even get caught out and prosecuted.

" 47 falsely issued MOT certificates over a 3-month period. Rafferty had been issuing the certificates despite the vehicles never entering the two garages he worked at in Petersfield..."

very similar to the drive by EICR problem.

Mike.

Following on from my earlier posting; since then I spotted a potential investment property and had a look at it today. The date of the EIC in 2015 was recorded on the CU as was a periodic I&T in 2021. However, neither document has made it to the auctioneer.

In this particular case, visual inspection was excellent throughout so the lack of an EICR is not a problem.

The thing with mandating more and more stuff is that the original intention eventually suffers from mission creep, and then you begin to find all kinds of bells & whistles attached which give rights to even more non-relevant people access to private data. We have all witnessed news reports of paperwork and USB sticks being left in public places by public sector employees. Be careful what you wish for.

I did an EICR on a large house for a client who had a fire with the source of ignition being a fridge. His insurance company were refusing to pay for extensive damage to the property as he had not complied with the requirements of the policy to keep the electrical installation in good order. He wanted the the EICR to show the condition of the installation was in good order to take the insurance company to court. I did the I&T and as usual the installation had serious non-compliances with BS 7671 resulting in an "unsatisfactory" EICR. 

Who would pay for this proposed register? A recent speech in the House of Lords by a member of the IET (FIET) concerning Grenville Tower about diverted neutral currents  questioned why the records of other buildings on site were not available on line. The electrical certification for Grenville Tower is available on the public enquiry web site and a cursory examination of those documents speaks volumes about the competency and integrity of the electrical installation industry, have a read.

My preference e would be for a register of individual persons qualified and competent to carry out inspection and testing.  Not a competent person scheme as they are not competent person schemes as they register enterprises not people.

I have updated my standard specification for periodic inspection and testing which specifies the requirement for competency of the inspector. It also covers the retention of documents.

If you want a copy email me on info(the symbol for at)astutetechnicalservices.co.uk.

JP

John Peckham said:

Who would pay for this proposed register?

The suppliers, or perhaps one on behalf of all of them. It shouldn't be a particularly challenging project because they already have data on every supply and, presumably, keep it securely. It would simply be a matter of attaching some files to each MPAN number.

Given that your client's insurers required that he keep his electrical installation in good order, it is perhaps surprising that they did not require periodic I&T and sight of the EICRs.

Of course, all insurers could do that, but I think that it would simply hasten the race to the bottom, so perhaps limit to buildings insured for £1M or more?

That HoL speech is here - scroll down about half way to Lord Rooker.

I used to do EICRs for a Housing Association contractor , the Housing Association have the EICRs for their own flats and houses.

However, some of these flats and houses had been bought by tenants under the Right to Buy Scheme, so then you get:

1. homes that were bought and the original tenants are living in them as owners and there has not been an EICR or gas safety certificate issued for thirty years or more.
2. homes that were bought by the original tenants then after a time sold to new owner occupiers, there may have been an an EICR produced at the time of the change in ownership, but that’s not a certainty and it may have been twenty years ago or more.
3. homes that are being rented out by the original tenants who bought them or subsequent purchasers, for these homes the The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, the tenant has to be given a copy of the EICR and the Local Authority has enforcement powers.

Also, the smoke alarm regulations only apply to private rental sector, not housing associations.

The housing association I was doing EICRs for did not provide smoke alarms it was up to tenants to provide them themselves, as it was the owner occupiers, but privately rented homes have to have them.

Do not assume there is a universal set of rules, I know from personal experience that on an estate with seventy flats Local to me, where I have worked, that the rules, regulations and requirements concerning EICRs and smoke alarms vary from flat to flat on the same landing and from house to house in the same terrace on another estate where I did work for the housing association contractor.

Given that your client's insurers required that he keep his electrical installation in good order, it is perhaps surprising that they did not require periodic I&T and sight of the EICRs.

But then it would be a lot harder to take the premiums but not pay out, and they'd have to do the extra admin of checking the EICRs up front - loose loose from the insurer's point of view.

I'm struggling to see how the condition of the fixed installation had any bearing on the fridge catching fire (apart from possibly a loose N on a 3-phase system which I suspect isn't the case here).

   - Andy.

Andy

Some insurance companies do ask for a current EICR for the issue of a policy or renewal, others wait for an event and then ask for it and refuse to pay claims if it is not produced.

I remember a few years ago I&Ting a factory before a log Christmas holiday. My client had a letter saying that there would not insure the premises over the Christmas period when the premises were going to be un-occupied without a satisfactory PIR (it was a long time ago).  A couple of electricians followed me around rectifying the serious defects. My client got his satisfactory PIR on Christmas Eve.

You might want to have a detailed look at your own house policy to see what it says about maintaining your services.?

JP

True, but don’t assume all owner occupiers have building insurance, the flats bought from HA are leasehold so the leaseholder has to comply with the requirements of the lease, but may fail to do so. The HA houses are sold freehold and there’s no requirement for freeholders to have building insurance.

If my house burns down all the records relating to electrical work I have completed within it will almost certainly be destroyed and that’s true for most homeowners who keep all the information about their homes in their homes.

Sparkingchip said:

If my house burns down all the records relating to electrical work I have completed within it will almost certainly be destroyed and that’s true for most homeowners who keep all the information about their homes in their homes.

That is a very valid point. At one time I would have suggested getting a fire safe, but now just scan and upload to the Cloud.