EICR downgraded by Landlord’s Agent from C2 to C3

brianmoooore · Feb 26, 2022

I take it this is the company that issued the original and not the 'modified' version.
There should be a signature there, but I'm sure that the company would be interested to know that someone is changing the certs that they issued and put their signature to.

nicebutdim · Feb 26, 2022

brianmoooore said:
I take it this is the company that issued the original and not the 'modified' version.
There should be a signature there, but I'm sure that the company would be interested to know that someone is changing the certs that they issued and put their signature to.

OP stated that cert hasn't been changed. The issue is a management company deciding that advice from their own electrical experts means no action needs to be taken in regard to the report's findings.

LauraCanning · Feb 26, 2022

littlespark said:
Well, you go to the company. They will know which electrician was sent to your property.

My issue isn’t with the individual that carried out the EICR

brianmoooore · Feb 26, 2022

If that's the case, the letting agencies 'experts' should perform another EICR to supersede the existing one.

LauraCanning · Feb 26, 2022

brianmoooore said:
I take it this is the company that issued the original and not the 'modified' version.
There should be a signature there, but I'm sure that the company would be interested to know that someone is changing the certs that they issued and put their signature to.

They haven’t actually amended the certificate. They have just said they won’t action the issues.

nicebutdim · Feb 26, 2022

LauraCanning said:
They haven’t actually amended the certificate. They have just said they won’t action the issues.

Might be worth speaking to citizen's advice as I can't see them having a leg to stand on without paying for another report.

brianmoooore · Feb 26, 2022

The other acceptable alternative would be for the letting agents electrical experts to contact the original firm and to argue it out with them, to try to get them to amend the certificate. We all know that no two testers will come up with identical EICRs, so if the agent thinks the C2s should be C3s, then they should convince the original tester.

Deleted account · Feb 26, 2022

LauraCanning said:
My issue isn’t with the individual that carried out the EICR

I know it’s not.

But if I issued or I was the owner of a company than one of my employees issue an EICR and had someone state it is wrong and refused to rectify the issues i would want to know.

I would be a bit miffed. I’d have strong words with letting agent and then report them to local building control / authority.

id remind them the max fine for this is now £30,000.00.

Timbo · Feb 27, 2022

timhoward said:
I think BPG 4 suggests a C2 for this.
The regs have required this for nearly 15 years now, much longer than the requirement for domestic lighting circuits to have rcd protection (which bpg 4 suggests is a C3) so the two things aren’t entirely equal in one sense.

15th Edition 1981, Amended June 1987.
Reg 471-47. 35 years.

[ElectriciansForums.net] EICR downgraded by Landlord’s Agent from C2 to C3

Mike Johnson · Feb 27, 2022

LauraCanning said:
They haven’t actually amended the certificate. They have just said they won’t action the issues.

Have they said this in writing, if so ask when they will be issuing the revised EICR, because at the moment you have an EICR that requires remedial action within 28days of its issue date, if they refuse your next port of call is building control.

UNG · Feb 27, 2022

Under the PRS the landlord has 28 days to carry out remedial work, can downgrading C2's be called remedial work, my thinking is no it can't

So who is actually responsible for enforcing the PRS as this has never been widely published or publicised within the electrical industry early indications were it was down to the local authority but which dept, and with the covid situation over the last few years has this been put on the back burner until things return to some sort of normal,
It is quite clear that the OP has been given an EICR with C2's on it, so if the landlord / letting agent was intending to downgrade them why would they not give the OP an EICR that only had C3's. The landlord / letting agent seems to be trying to pull a fast one that would suggest they have some inside knowledge of how toothless the PRS legislation is in the current situation

brianmoooore · Feb 27, 2022

Mike Johnson said:
if they refuse your next port of call is building control.

A good idea, IF you can get building control interested.

Dartlec · Feb 27, 2022

UNG said:
Under the PRS the landlord has 28 days to carry out remedial work, can downgrading C2's be called remedial work, my thinking is no it can't

So who is actually responsible for enforcing the PRS as this has never been widely published or publicised within the electrical industry early indications were it was down to the local authority but which dept, and with the covid situation over the last few years has this been put on the back burner until things return to some sort of normal,
It is quite clear that the OP has been given an EICR with C2's on it, so if the landlord / letting agent was intending to downgrade them why would they not give the OP an EICR that only had C3's. The landlord / letting agent seems to be trying to pull a fast one that would suggest they have some inside knowledge of how toothless the PRS legislation is in the current situation

It's an interesting fault of the way the law was brought in by trying to use an existing report and add additional requirements to it.

Nothing in the law says that a satisfactory EICR must be in place, it just says that any unsatisfactory issues must be corrected within 28 days and (if I remember correctly) 'suitable documentation kept of the remedial work'.

It could possibly be argued that a suitably competent person could consider that a C2 by one inspector, actually is a C3 and does not need correcting. At the very least I don't see how that would be possible without them attending the property though to judge the issues.

It would also need to be very clearly documented and kept with the original EICR as a complete package (and probably supplied to the tenant?).

In most cases redoing the EICR is the easiest option in that sense of course, but the regulations don't specifically require that.

It's fairly clear that this isn't what has happened in this case though.

I would suggest the OP gets something very clear in writing from the letting agency stating their position. That could then be forwarded to the council and perhaps the scheme of the company who did the EICR, to see what their views are.

It's down to the council to enforce the rules - and this might well be an easy case for them to flex their muscles.

snowhead · Feb 27, 2022

From the legislation;

So the Tenant must have a copy but the L.A only get one one if they request it.
However the above assumes the report was satisfactory.

As above the Tenant gets confirmation the work has been done.
But this time the L.A gets one without requesting it.

The flaw (another one) in the legislation is that the L.A don't know when an unsatisfactory EICR has been isued so then don't know that they need to be informed of the satisfactory remedials.

I'd suggest the Tenant emails or writes to the Agent and asks them to confirm that as per U.K Gov Legislation they will be sending confirmation to the Local Authority that the remedial work has been downgraded by themselves and that the remedial work no longer needs completing.

Crozzy · Mar 4, 2022

LauraCanning said:
View attachment 95216

I would put some of them as code 1! RCD!

DPG · Mar 4, 2022

Crozzy said:
I would put some of them as code 1! RCD!

Why's that then Ted?

littlespark · Mar 4, 2022

Crozzy said:
I would put some of them as code 1! RCD!

I’ll politely disagree with you there. C1’s are reserved for immediately dangerous situations. (Bare conductors that can be touched for example)

Lack of rcd is simply a C3. Improvement recommended.

Mike Johnson · Mar 4, 2022

A bit surprised you politely disagree, I would have thought "vehemently" disagree would be more appropriate.

Gavin John Hyde · Mar 4, 2022

Its because of a rogue landlord editing another sparks report that i now download mine then open them in adobe acrobat and protect them from editing. it means I have a layer of protection that whilst they could convert to jpegs then edit and save as a pdf. the adobe file has a digital signature. so if proverbial hits the fan i have my evidence

Simon47 · Mar 12, 2022

The OP is in a slightly tricky situation here.
If the agent is this cavalier with safety, then one wonders what their attitude is to revenge evictions ?
If the OP reports this, then there are agents and/or landlords who will quite happily kick out the tenant using Section 21. Quite rightly, this has been highlighted as being bad, and that's why it's being planned that S21 will get the chop. As a landlord myself, I am in two minds about this - I have no support whatsoever for the ****s that do this and get the rest of us a bad name in the process, but on the other hand, it can be hard to get rid of truly bad tenants (even with S21) and that's going to get harder.
And it "annoys me greatly" that there are ****s who are doing this sort of thing. It's the sort of disregard for basic safety that got us into mandatory electrical checks in the first place.

I do have to say that the landlord could be completely oblivious to what's going on. I have a family member in a rented house which I'm fairly certain from cursory observation will not be without at least one C2 - AFAIK they've not had any EICR done. But they've been complaining for many months about a leaking roof which the agent won't get fixed - and they thing the agent has something of a reputation for hiding details from landlords. It could be that this agent is doing much the same thing, and the landlord is happily oblivious - just thinking that the agent is doing well at keeping the maintenance costs in check. But it could be that the agent is just doing the landlord's bidding and the landlord is just as much of a **** as the agent.

Deleted account · Mar 15, 2022

Simon47 said:
The OP is in a slightly tricky situation here.
If the agent is this cavalier with safety, then one wonders what their attitude is to revenge evictions ?
If the OP reports this, then there are agents and/or landlords who will quite happily kick out the tenant using Section 21. Quite rightly, this has been highlighted as being bad, and that's why it's being planned that S21 will get the chop. As a landlord myself, I am in two minds about this - I have no support whatsoever for the ****s that do this and get the rest of us a bad name in the process, but on the other hand, it can be hard to get rid of truly bad tenants (even with S21) and that's going to get harder.
And it "annoys me greatly" that there are ****s who are doing this sort of thing. It's the sort of disregard for basic safety that got us into mandatory electrical checks in the first place.

I do have to say that the landlord could be completely oblivious to what's going on. I have a family member in a rented house which I'm fairly certain from cursory observation will not be without at least one C2 - AFAIK they've not had any EICR done. But they've been complaining for many months about a leaking roof which the agent won't get fixed - and they thing the agent has something of a reputation for hiding details from landlords. It could be that this agent is doing much the same thing, and the landlord is happily oblivious - just thinking that the agent is doing well at keeping the maintenance costs in check. But it could be that the agent is just doing the landlord's bidding and the landlord is just as much of a **** as the agent.

Slightly off topic, but the revenge eviction just will not happen.
landlords and agents do not go near evictions if they can help it. It’s a minefield, all in favour of the tenant.

ive been trying to evict non paying tenants for 6 months now. At great cost and losses of rent. Only now is light at the end of tunnel. Possibly going in 5 to 6 weeks apparently…..

Simon47 · Mar 15, 2022

Yeah, right. Reality is that there are plenty of ****s who will quite happily issue a S21 notice if a tenant complains about repairs - that's why regs came in a few years ago that made a S21 invalid for 6 months after a complaint to the council, and why S21 is going when the gov get round to putting the legislation through. Once the S21 notice is served then the tenant is screwed - and they WILL be leaving sooner or later even if they hang on until the bailiffs literally put them and their possessions out on the street.
Now, what you appear to be describing is a different matter altogether. We've had a couple of years of restrictions, moratoriums, closed courts, court backlogs, blah, blah, blah. So yes, if a tenant doesn't comply with a notice to quit then it can take some time for the processes to grind along before you can get the bailiffs to physically put them out - and the sort of tenant that does that tends to know how to work the system to drag it out and not pay rent. But that does not change the fact that if a tenant complains, and their landlord is the sort to do revenge evictions, then they will be leaving that property ... eventually.
While I can see an argument for "why would you want to stay", I can also see many reasons why someone might not want to move. The property might be generally OK, it could be particularly convenient, or cheaper than anything else they can find, can't face the upheaval with young children in tow, or ... Whatever the reason, if they don't want to be moving then complaining about maintenance issues is a risk if the landlord is a ****.