Double Sockets

[Susie D]

Hi there.

I have had a rather enthusiastic diy tenant in a property of mine.

He has changed all the sin gle plug sockets to doubles and added a further 2 in the rear bedroom making a total of 6 plug sockets in there!!
He is an arfchitect working for the council so I don't think he's too dumb but..........

2 questions:
Is this legal?
Is it safe?

Thanks

 

[Adam_151]

Is this legal?

Thats a question with a longer answer than you were probably expecting, from the sounds of it, the work he has done is non-notifiable under the building regulations, but the building regulations do require it to be done in a safe way (as do conventional laws governing liability and duty of care etc) However he quite likely in breach of contact unless there was nothing to stop him doing this kind of thing without asking you (and if it wasn't in there... why not?). On the flip side I'm not sure what kinds of requirements are placed on you in law as a landlord with regards to having periodic inspections carried out... but its certainly advised that you have one done at change of tenancy, and given you knew what had happened and had doubts about it, I dont really beleieve it would look favourably upon you if you choose not to have one done and anything happened...

Is it safe?

Perfectly safe if done competantly

 

[Susie D]

Thanks for your response Adam - it put my mind at rest a lttle.

I'll get an electrician to check them as I am moving back nto the property.

Rest assured that there was no agreement in the tenany ageement or from me to do this and I think it has only recently been done. I only discovered this on Sat when the tenant left.

Some folk just can't help themselves can they - why didn't he just buy a couple of extension leads like the rest of us!!!!!

 

[securespark]

Next time you rent, put a clause in saying NO DIY...

 

[ninebob]

Next time you rent, put a clause in saying NO DIY...

I agree in principal, but on this occasion it doesn't sound like the tenant has done anything dangerous or illegal. In fact, by increasing the socket provision he has almost certainly improved the property (if he did it neatly, of course!).

It would be very difficult (though not impossible) to get anything horrendously wrong when just replacing single sockets with doubles, and as long as the extra bedroom sockets are on the ring and not spurs-on-spurs I don't see anything wrong with that either.

Certainly better than running lots of extension strips around.