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So I'm a tenant, just had the letting agent's electrician perform an eicr.

Would anyone like to guess what the test consisted of?

Quick hint, they arrived at 4pm on a Friday.
 
The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020

Interpretation

2. In these Regulations—

.
.
“electrical safety standards” means the standards for electrical installations in the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671: 2018
.
.
Duties of private landlords in relation to electrical installations

3.—(1) A private landlord(1) who grants or intends to grant a specified tenancy must—

(a) ensure that the electrical safety standards are met during any period when the residential premises(2) are occupied under a specified tenancy;

Read the introduction section on page 4 of the current regs please.

The regs can not possibly be retrospective. Imagine the cost and upheaval every time a new revision or amendment came out!
 
Yes, indeed. A set of non-statutory technical regulations says that electrical installations which do not comply do not necessarily have to be upgraded.

And an actual law says that they do have to comply.

It is open to any landlord to pay lawyers squillions of pounds a day to dance on the head of that particular pin.

But meanwhile, in the real world, there is no denying that (with the definition expanded) what the law says in black and white is:

A private landlord who grants or intends to grant a specified tenancy must ensure that the standards for electrical installations in the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671: 2018 are met during any period when the residential premises are occupied under a specified tenancy.

?
 
Yes, indeed. A set of non-statutory technical regulations says that electrical installations which do not comply do not necessarily have to be upgraded.

And an actual law says that they do have to comply.

It is open to any landlord to pay lawyers squillions of pounds a day to dance on the head of that particular pin.

But meanwhile, in the real world, there is no denying that (with the definition expanded) what the law says in black and white is:

A private landlord who grants or intends to grant a specified tenancy must ensure that the standards for electrical installations in the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671: 2018 are met during any period when the residential premises are occupied under a specified tenancy.

?

Yes, the regs must be complied with. And a fundamental feature of the regs is covered in the introduction on page 4 that I referred to, which states that existing installations may not meet the latest regs, but may be safe. I'm not sure why you are trying to prove that every property must comply with every single reg in the 18th edition.
 
First, the law doesn't apply to "every property", only privately rented accommodation.

Secondly, I'm not trying to "prove" anything - I'm just showing that the law quite clearly says that such accommodation must meet the standards of the 18th.

You have a number of options concerning that.

You can deny that it says it.
You can say it doesn't mean what it says.
You can go and complain about it to the people who wrote it.

But one option I don't think you have is to get argumentative with me when I say that the law requires something which it quite clearly does, and will continue to say until someone pays the lawyers for a pinhead dance and a court rules on how it is to be interpreted. None of us here have any standing to rule on what the intent of Parliament really was, and no matter how many and how often people say "yeah but the regs say...", the law will continue to say what it does.
 
First, the law doesn't apply to "every property", only privately rented accommodation.

Secondly, I'm not trying to "prove" anything - I'm just showing that the law quite clearly says that such accommodation must meet the standards of the 18th.

You have a number of options concerning that.

You can deny that it says it.
You can say it doesn't mean what it says.
You can go and complain about it to the people who wrote it.

But one option I don't think you have is to get argumentative with me when I say that the law requires something which it quite clearly does, and will continue to say until someone pays the lawyers for a pinhead dance and a court rules on how it is to be interpreted. None of us here have any standing to rule on what the intent of Parliament really was, and no matter how many and how often people say "yeah but the regs say...", the law will continue to say what it does.

OK then, I accept your argument that every single rented property in the country needs all its wiring replacing and a new consumer unit fitting.
 
I happen to agree with Soi disant, unfortunately.



The “Regs” we are all familiar with and refer to do not apply retrospectively and there is no suggestion that they do in anything said, they are regulations with an implied legal enforcement due to the building and statuary regulations.

As far as an EICR undertaken in line with the Regs is concerned it shall compare the state of the installation under inspection against the current Regs, and highlight any areas that do not comply with a measure of how significant this is in terms of safety, thus non-compliance could result in nothing through C3 to C1 based on an engineering understanding of the risk.



However, when a private rental property is being inspected, this is not necessarily an EICR (actually periodic inspection).

In Scotland the wording of the law does indicate that a periodic inspection in line with the current Regs must be done – so in Scotland you do a standard “EICR” as described above and in section 6 of the Regs, when it was the 17th it had to be in line with that, and when it becomes the 19th it needs to be done in line with that.



In England however the wording is very different, it does not demand that an inspection is undertaken in line with the current Regs, instead it states very clearly that the ‘Private landlord must ensure that the “electrical safety standards” are met’, and that the “electrical safety standards” “means the 18th edition of the wiring regulations”



Effectively this in legal terms means that Private landlord must ensure that the property is in adherence with the 18th edition of the wiring regulations.
(Presumably they will need to change this law when the 19th comes out as it doesn’t state pro Tempore.)



Now, like many, I am pretty sure this was not intended by the writers as it is stupid! Unfortunately, that’s what is written into law!

At the time it was introduced I asked a lawyer colleague (specialises in this area for building/engineering companies) if this should be interpreted as the installation should be compliant with the 18th, or merely tested in accordance with the guidelines of the 18th.
His opinion was very clear – it states “The standards of the 18th Must be met” doesn’t state “should be inspected to”.

What followed was a bit of a discussion, and in line with most law, basically it takes a court to decide exactly what was meant, he would be happy to defend someone who interpreted it sensibly (inspect like an EICR), but would also be comfortable to argue that it means the standards of the 18th must be met.

He also volunteered that he would expect the literal “it means the standards of the 18th must be met” to be the favourite to win, especially as the most likely time this sort of thing would go to court is following some event similar to Grenfell, where all the sympathies lie with the victims of “the unscrupulous landlord, and their ‘Electrician’ who knowingly misinterpreted the law in order to save money and increase profits at the expense of these poor victims of the fire/whatever….”



I don’t do EICR really, just overview ones that have been done and submitted to various organisations, and perform similar pre-inspections when we are designing hotel/factory/office refirbs’; but I would be really concerned if I did work in these areas as you know you are competing with fly-bys who will pick money making “faults” such as plastic CUs, but ignore real issues because that would take some real work! If in addition to that you took the actual literal interpretation of what the law says to private landlords, you would have no work at all!

Like everyone, I think the scams are a bit of a rip-off, but this is where they should actually be serving us, that is to seek official clarification from government and thereby direct their scheme members as to what meaning ought to be applied.
 
I agree that from a literal reading, as @Soi disant quotes, the statutory requirement is for the installation to be 18th ed. compliant, and that this seems to be a mistake in how it is worded. They have presumably used 'electrical safety standards are met' to mean safe for continued use, overlooking that they have specifically defined 'electrical safety standards' as installed to 18th ed. rather than achieving a satisfactory EICR to 18th ed. Although BS7671 states that installations compliant with earlier editions might be safe for continued use, that doesn't help here as it is not a route to demonstrate compliance with the current edition.
 
I happen to agree with Soi disant, unfortunately.



The “Regs” we are all familiar with and refer to do not apply retrospectively and there is no suggestion that they do in anything said, they are regulations with an implied legal enforcement due to the building and statuary regulations.

As far as an EICR undertaken in line with the Regs is concerned it shall compare the state of the installation under inspection against the current Regs, and highlight any areas that do not comply with a measure of how significant this is in terms of safety, thus non-compliance could result in nothing through C3 to C1 based on an engineering understanding of the risk.



However, when a private rental property is being inspected, this is not necessarily an EICR (actually periodic inspection).

In Scotland the wording of the law does indicate that a periodic inspection in line with the current Regs must be done – so in Scotland you do a standard “EICR” as described above and in section 6 of the Regs, when it was the 17th it had to be in line with that, and when it becomes the 19th it needs to be done in line with that.



In England however the wording is very different, it does not demand that an inspection is undertaken in line with the current Regs, instead it states very clearly that the ‘Private landlord must ensure that the “electrical safety standards” are met’, and that the “electrical safety standards” “means the 18th edition of the wiring regulations”



Effectively this in legal terms means that Private landlord must ensure that the property is in adherence with the 18th edition of the wiring regulations.
(Presumably they will need to change this law when the 19th comes out as it doesn’t state pro Tempore.)



Now, like many, I am pretty sure this was not intended by the writers as it is stupid! Unfortunately, that’s what is written into law!

At the time it was introduced I asked a lawyer colleague (specialises in this area for building/engineering companies) if this should be interpreted as the installation should be compliant with the 18th, or merely tested in accordance with the guidelines of the 18th.
His opinion was very clear – it states “The standards of the 18th Must be met” doesn’t state “should be inspected to”.

What followed was a bit of a discussion, and in line with most law, basically it takes a court to decide exactly what was meant, he would be happy to defend someone who interpreted it sensibly (inspect like an EICR), but would also be comfortable to argue that it means the standards of the 18th must be met.

He also volunteered that he would expect the literal “it means the standards of the 18th must be met” to be the favourite to win, especially as the most likely time this sort of thing would go to court is following some event similar to Grenfell, where all the sympathies lie with the victims of “the unscrupulous landlord, and their ‘Electrician’ who knowingly misinterpreted the law in order to save money and increase profits at the expense of these poor victims of the fire/whatever….”



I don’t do EICR really, just overview ones that have been done and submitted to various organisations, and perform similar pre-inspections when we are designing hotel/factory/office refirbs’; but I would be really concerned if I did work in these areas as you know you are competing with fly-bys who will pick money making “faults” such as plastic CUs, but ignore real issues because that would take some real work! If in addition to that you took the actual literal interpretation of what the law says to private landlords, you would have no work at all!

Like everyone, I think the scams are a bit of a rip-off, but this is where they should actually be serving us, that is to seek official clarification from government and thereby direct their scheme members as to what meaning ought to be applied.

It's an interesting take - but I would imagine any case that went to court following an incident might be brought by the Health and Safety Executive, and given their very clear statement on page 13 they might find it hard to argue that anyone could reasonably assume that everything had to be ripped out and reinstalled to 18th standards. I doubt anyone would get far with the argument that old colour cabling is non "18th compliant" therefore cannot be left in any rented property...

Chapter 65 is not very big on guidance unfortunately, so we end up back with guides like the ESF Best Practise one or the NAPIT one, neither of which have regulatory weight, though would presumably be considered as evidence of 'best practise'.

The legislation imposes the duty on the landlord too, which means that they are expected to interpret these regulations and understand how to find someone who is competent. And it is then left to the local housing authority to police, and given what we've recently seen in Croydon as an example, a lot of them have their own house to get in order, literally, before they have much moral ground to go after landlords who have tried their best to meet the legislation.
 
It's an interesting take - but I would imagine any case that went to court following an incident might be brought by the Health and Safety Executive, and given their very clear statement on page 13 they might find it hard to argue that anyone could reasonably assume that everything had to be ripped out and reinstalled to 18th standards. I doubt anyone would get far with the argument that old colour cabling is non "18th compliant" therefore cannot be left in any rented property...

Chapter 65 is not very big on guidance unfortunately, so we end up back with guides like the ESF Best Practise one or the NAPIT one, neither of which have regulatory weight, though would presumably be considered as evidence of 'best practise'.

The legislation imposes the duty on the landlord too, which means that they are expected to interpret these regulations and understand how to find someone who is competent. And it is then left to the local housing authority to police, and given what we've recently seen in Croydon as an example, a lot of them have their own house to get in order, literally, before they have much moral ground to go after landlords who have tried their best to meet the legislation.
Page 13 of what?


The Law as highlighted previously is SI 312, this is the aspect which defines what standards are to be met, not the 18th itself.

And the whole point is that one can argue what is sensible, what suits them, how they may like to interpret each clause, when they should take things literally, and when they shall be "more of a guideline" to quote captain Barbossa, what ultimately matters is how a court decides, until then there is no definitive answer.

Which is why I believe the schemes should obtain this ahead of this occuring
 
The generals (powers to be) are telling the soldiers in the trenches (us) to charge towards the enemies machine guns.
And just for good measure.
The landlords and tenants have been told to wait patiently in no mans land for the results.
Well at least the generals are safe ?‍♂️
 
Surely this is only relevant to the landlord and not those carrying out the EICR. To me, not that we doing much domestic you just carry on as you always have, do the job submit the Report. Then it becomes the landlords problem. These new laws do not affect how an EICR is carried out.
 
We are electricians not solicitors, why are we finding ourselves second guessing how to interpret law. Couple of hundred quid at most for all this hassle.
Next time you enter a property to conduct an EICR boys and girls, look down at yourselves and wonder what are all those red laser dots on you ?
 

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