inspection
Electrical certificates and building control
A certificate for completed work costs £90 to £250 where an electrician has to inspect and test somebody else's installation first. Issued alongside the job it is normally included, and people usually look for one on its own when selling a house.
What this covers
What it costs. Issued with the job, a certificate is normally included in the price. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Installation certificates for new circuits
- Minor works certificates for alterations
- Notifying work through a competent person scheme
- Certificates for work a previous trade left uncertified
- Regularisation through building control where no scheme applies
Worth knowing
Where a report calls for further investigation or remedial work, an English landlord has 28 days to have it done, or less if the report names a shorter period. The deadline is on the landlord, not the electrician.
Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, regulation 3(4)
What is involved
Three documents cover domestic work and they are not interchangeable. An Electrical Installation Certificate covers a new installation or a new circuit, and carries the design, construction and inspection signatures plus a schedule of test results. A Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate covers an alteration to an existing circuit, adding a socket or moving a light, and has no design section because nothing was designed. A condition report is neither: it reports on an installation rather than certifying work done to it.
The certificate is issued by whoever did the work, which is why obtaining one afterwards is awkward. An electrician certifies only work they did or saw done. What they can do is inspect and test what is there now and issue a condition report on it, and for most buyers' solicitors that answers the question. Where the work was notifiable and never notified, the route is a regularisation application to building control, who inspect and issue a completion certificate for a fee that is usually more than the original job.
The building regulations compliance certificate is a fourth document and is easily confused with the others. It is not issued by the electrician: it comes from the competent person scheme after the electrician notifies the work, and it arrives by post some weeks later. If you have the electrician's certificate but not that one, the work was probably never notified, and that is worth raising with the business promptly.
Choosing someone for the job
Ask which certificate you will be given and get the name of it, because the three sound alike and only one covers a new circuit. Ask whether the work is notifiable and who notifies it. If you are chasing paperwork for a sale, say so at the start: an inspection and a condition report is usually the faster answer than trying to certify history.
Worth reading first:
- Part P: which electrical work has to be notifiedElectrician qualifications in the UK: what each one meansWhat is an EICR? What it checks and when you need one
Related jobs:
Common questions
Can an electrician certify work somebody else did?
No. A certificate is a declaration by the person who designed, installed and tested the work. What another electrician can do is inspect and test what exists now and report on its condition, which is a different document and is usually what a solicitor will accept.
I have the electrician's certificate but nothing from building control.
Then the work was probably not notified. The scheme sends the compliance certificate out after the electrician notifies it, weeks later. Ask the business to check, because the business can usually put it right quickly.