Mandatory EICRs - I see ESR are drumming up business !

[SimonH2]

http://netrent.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/mandatory-electrical-checks-proposed.html

Mandatory Electrical Checks Proposed for Private Sector Landlords

The Communities and Local Government (CLG) Select Committee has recommended that private sector landlords be required to undertake a mandatory five-yearly check of electrical installations in their properties.
…

And then further down :
“We are delighted that the committee has made this recommendation,” said ESC director general Phil Buckle. “We have, for some time now, been lobbying hard for such mandatory regulation in the PRS.
Thanks a lot guys, as if there weren't already enough regulation adding costs to legitimate landlords and being ignored by the very people they are targeting

 

[DaftPunk]

Sounds good to me. Making sure rented properties are safe for their tennants and drumming up extra work for electricians.

Two birds with one stone.

 

[JohnW2]

Does anyone know whether the proposal is that these 'five-year checks' should be standard 'full' EICRs, or maybe perhaps some lesser exercise? If the latter, my bones might be sensing a new flavour of '5-day courses' already on someone's drawing board!!

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

There were 8.3M rented households in E&W the 2011 census. Allowing for a bit of under-reporting, that's getting on for 7000 inspections per day.

 

[JohnW2]

There were 8.3M rented households in E&W the 2011 census. Allowing for a bit of under-reporting, that's getting on for 7000 inspections per day.

Indeed - and I can't see that 'opportunity' escaping the attention of 'entrepreneurs' and dubious 'money makers' ... I can well see large-scale 'sausage machine' operations being set up, employing the least qualified/experienced people they could get away with, if/when this proposal (which has been 'expected' for a long time) turns into a reality.

To do a proper 'electrical check' (i.e. an EICR) is a much more involved and time-consuming exercise than is a 'gas check' in nearly all of the sort of properties we're talking about.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

As far as I am aware any EICR is given to the client/home owner only not to the tenant so it could be full of non compliant items but nothing forces the owner to correct them.

The public sector moves out the tenant while the home is refurbished but this is hardly an option for the private landlord so the only way he could do this is by issuing 5 year agreements and getting new tenants every 5 years this is just not going to happen.

If the EICR had to be submitted to a body to check then maybe it could work but the Part P required installation certificated to be submitted and even when there were errors nothing was done about it so why would anyone expect a different result with EICR?

The only time the EICR would be looked at is after an accident. The same with PAT testing and as happens with commercial buildings firms specialising in inspection and testing will take on the work for very low fees and employ electricians who are given times which there is no way they can complete the tests and have to skimp to complete in times given. When caught out they are sacked and another employed and the firm just says that electrician was let go so there will be no more problems but the next is also not given the time required.

In other words the whole inspection and testing is a sham done purely to show the HSE that the firm is doing it's best.

We had a post on here pointing out how some poor lady was killed by a faulty room heater plugged into a faulty socket. The land lady had been informed there was likely a problem and she had employed an electrician to look into it but accident happened before he arrived. The tenant clearly knew there was a problem by the fact he had reported it to land lady but still moved his wife into the property. To me it was the tenant who was negligent not land lady but courts did not see it that way.

So the only way the land lord can protect themselves is to have inspections on a regular basis and to be able to show them to any authority who inquire after an accident. It would not really matter if a law said he should inspect and test or not it is to his benefit to have records to shift the blame in the case of an accident.

Until courts stop trying to blame people for not have maintained stuff in a safe condition and start to blame those who take risks with there own and there families lives then the land lord has no option but to do frequent tests and record results.

 

[bernardgreen]

This is a can of worms.

There are responsible landlords who do maintain the electrical installation in good order and respond rapidly to any concern the tenant raises. There is no need to force these to inspect and keep record. They also tend to get bad tenants out of the property.

There are disreputable, near criminal, landlords whos properties are not isnspected and often have bodged and dangerous electrical installations. These are the landlords that need to be forced to inspect and repair ( replace ) the installation. But they are the very one who are very good at avoiding compliance with regulations and hence seldom get served enforcement. Their tenants dare not complain and it is only after an accident, fire or fatality, that the authorities discover the problematic landlord.

The money would be better spent finding the properties operated by disruptable landlords and issuing enforcements to inspect and improve on these landlords.

 

[SimonH2]

As far as I am aware any EICR is given to the client/home owner only not to the tenant so it could be full of non compliant items but nothing forces the owner to correct them.

My guess is that the rules would probably require something slightly different to current EICRs - probably along the lines of the Landlords Gas Safety Check where a copy is given to the tenant.

The public sector moves out the tenant while the home is refurbished but this is hardly an option for the private landlord so the only way he could do this is by issuing 5 year agreements and getting new tenants every 5 years this is just not going to happen.

Well if the law says it's going to happen then that's what would happen - at least with landlords that follow the law/good practice. The end result is that costs go up, so rents would go up to cover it.

Until courts stop trying to blame people for not have maintained stuff in a safe condition and start to blame those who take risks with there own and there families lives then the land lord has no option but to do frequent tests and record results.

Well I can't speak for others, but both my properties have had EICRs done (about 2 1/2 years ago now) - and yes, it's in part an a**e covering exercise. I wouldn't think of having one done while a tenant was in, unless there was an obvious problem - but then my current tenants are good people and I'd expect no tenant caused issues from them. Obviously some tenants are not so careful, but as you say, it's about time the courts expected people to look after themselves.

The problem is that (as in all walks of life), some landlords aren't that bothered - so the rest of us get lumbered with more regulation and costs rather than using the laws that already exist to deal with them

 

[SimonH2]

The money would be better spent finding the properties operated by disruptable landlords and issuing enforcements to inspect and improve on these landlords.

+1 on that

 

[securespark]

Oui, oui!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

“We are delighted that the committee has made this recommendation,” said ESC director general Phil Buckle. “We have, for some time now, been lobbying hard for such mandatory regulation in the PRS."

Absolutely.

One only has to look to see what a stunning success bringing electrical work into the scope of the Building Regulations was, how it improved the quality of work, and drove incompetent unskilled people out of the trade, to realise that legislation like this really is a magic wand.

 

[SimonH2]

The sad thing is BAS, some people will read that and not see the irony

 

[JohnW2]

My guess is that the rules would probably require something slightly different to current EICRs - probably along the lines of the Landlords Gas Safety Check where a copy is given to the tenant.

Indeed. As I wrote before, I suspect that the rules might require something very different from (maybe much 'less' than) a standard EICR - which, as I also said, could lead to a situation in which they end up being undertaken by some new breed of specifically 'trained' people!

I agree with many/most of your points, but we have 'all known' that this was almost inevitably going to come sooner or later. One cannot knock incentives to improve electrical safety in privately rented accommodation (which is sometimes appalling) but, as you have said, one has to wonder whether this is the approach most likely to achieve that (and optimally 'targetted'), at an acceptable price (in all senses of the word).

Kind Regards, John

 

[SimonH2]

Indeed, it's probably yet another sledgehammer to deal with what probably doesn't look like a nail anyway. In a similar way, some councils have imposed mandatory licensing as an easy way to deal with w relatively small number of problem landlords - rather than being willing to target their efforts where it's needed. All that does is impose yet more red tape and cost on everyone but the ones causing the problems. And the council still needs to put as much effort into dealing with the problem.

Thankfully the NLA has had some success in persuading a number of councils to back away from blanket licensing - though AFAIK it's never been on the cards where I am (nice area )

I also have to wonder at the statistics being used to push this. It's one thing saying "over half of all accidental fires in GB homes ... are caused by electricity", but without also saying how many of these would actually be avoided by a 5 yearly "cut down EICR" it's completely meaningless - like some of the stats ministers wheel out to support their pet (and usually unpopular and ill thought out) scheme.

Looking at it logically, assuming the fault occurs at random, then there's an average of 2 1/2 years between it occurring and the EICR - max is 5 years, minimum is "hardly anything". If a fault has been present, without causing a fire, and without making itself known, for several years - then one has to wonder if it's likely to actually cause a fire. If it made itself known (burnt socket, circuit not working, "burning electrics" smell) but wasn't reported then that's the tenant's fault and if the tenant doesn't care about their own safety then (while it may sound harsh) it's hard to think of them as hard done by.

So a bit of a subjective question for those who do electrics and EICRs for a living ...
Would you care to guestimate how many faults, that are "likely" to result in a fire or other life threatening situation, do you think would be picked up by a 5 yearly EICR before they actually caused an incident ?

 

[JohnW2]

I also have to wonder at the statistics being used to push this. It's one thing saying "over half of all accidental fires in GB homes ... are caused by electricity", but without also saying how many of these would actually be avoided by a 5 yearly "cut down EICR" it's completely meaningless - like some of the stats ministers wheel out to support their pet (and usually unpopular and ill thought out) scheme.

Indeed -probably the same sort of stats which were used to justify the introduction of Part P. In both cases, it has (at least, IMO) been 'well-intentioned', and the ministers themselves are probably not too much to blame. However, as you say, 'identifying a problem' (and even that based on pretty iffy stats) does not in any way indicate how much improvement could be achieved by a particular 'measure'. In the case of Part P they even produced numerical predictions of how many deaths/ injuries/ fires/ costs would be avoided by it's introduction - and goodness knows how they did that bit of guesswork. It would be an insult to call it 'statistics'!

Looking at it logically, assuming the fault occurs at random, then there's an average of 2 1/2 years between it occurring and the EICR - max is 5 years, minimum is "hardly anything". If a fault has been present, without causing a fire, and without making itself known, for several years - then one has to wonder if it's likely to actually cause a fire.

That's certainly a viewpoint - but I suppose it could be used as an argument for never undertaking any EICR on any property (and similarly for never undertaking 'routine inspections' in many other walks of life). Is that your view?

So a bit of a subjective question for those who do electrics and EICRs for a living ... Would you care to guestimate how many faults, that are "likely" to result in a fire or other life threatening situation, do you think would be picked up by a 5 yearly EICR before they actually caused an incident ?

That's obviously the crucial question, but I strongly suspect that their answer is likley to be that, in a high proportion of cases, our guess is likely to be as good as theirs. The problem is that even seemingly 'major' safety issues they picked up (e.g. absent main bonding, or even such gross things as a totally absent earth, or total absence of an OPD on a circuit) could well carry on existing for decades into the future without any 'incident' ever occurring. That makes it very difficult to make any sensible estimates of how much 'good' would come from any particular 'measures'.

Kind Regards, John