Well the guy has also put a C2 on the consumer unit not being compliant with BS7671. Surely this is a C3?
That would depend on the non-compliance.
Lack of an RCD, for example, could become a real and immediate danger if a fault or other foreseeable event was to occur in the installation or connected equipment.
Whilst the low resistance values are not ideal, surely if they are within the bounds of BS7671, then they have to be categorised as C3.
They don't
have to be. What they
do have to be coded as is what the electrician, who has exercised reasonable skill and care when carrying out the EICR, thinks, to the best of his knowledge and belief, they should be.
I believe that only one of the C2 items on the EICR is correctly a C2.
But you did not carry out the EICR, and you are not qualified to do one, or to criticise one.
This is important for keeping the tenant happy, who is now convinced the place is a death trap.
With the cause of the fault unknown, and the way-below-par IR figures for the other circuits he might be right. He is certainly justified in being worried.
You have paid a professional electrician for his professional opinion, and you don't like what it is. Maybe he is overstating the problems. Maybe he is seeking to inflate the job into a complete rewire. Maybe he is trying to avoid the hard work of finding the fault. Maybe he is very experienced and has considered the general appearance and state of the installation in conjunction with the IR values and has judged the C2s to be justified.
These are all possibilities to consider, but really your only option is to get a second opinion from another electrician who actually goes and inspects & tests the flat. Opinions from people here are of no use to you - you argue when they contradict your view that the electrician is scamming you, and even if you did get support for that position here it would do you no good, because you
have got an EICR, and it
does say that remedial work is pretty urgent, so as a landlord you cannot just ignore it.
There's no VIR, the place was wired in the 80's.
PVC cables do not last forever, but unless they have been subjected to extreme and prolonged stress they ought not to be in such poor condition after 30 years - they ought to last 20 years when run at maximum temperature 24x365.
http://www.basec.org.uk/News/Basec-News/Life-Expectancy-of-Cables
Please accept that
something is wrong. What it is may still be unknown, but those IR figures are not good at all for 30-year old PVC cables in a domestic dwelling.
I feel the electrician is overstating the problems, and dodging the hard work of finding the fault.
Get another opinion, and make it clear that any remedial work will be given to somebody else, so there's no incentive for them to invent things.