Legal Update Feb 2020
All lettings agents will soon have to complete electrical checks on all rented properties they manage for electrical safety or face fines of up to £30,000.
The proposals are outlined in the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 laid in front of parliament in January and expected to become law on 1st July this year. The government had hoped to bring the new regulations in earlier, but was persuaded that landlords and letting agents should be given time to cope with the avalanche of other regulations in the pipeline.
This lays out in substantial detail how landlords and letting agents will have to ensure that electrical installations within a property are tested by a qualified person.
For new tenancies this will have to carried out and signed off before the start of a tenancy and then every five years. For new tenancies on or after 1st July 2020, the property must have a compliant Electrical Safety Certificate (ESC) in place before commencement. Existing tenancies, the properties will have to be checked by 1st April 2021 and then every five years.
Key Date Timeline
- 1st July 2020 – Law comes into effect
- 1st July 2020 – All property with new tenancies on, or after this date must have an ESC
- 1st April 2021 – All property with existing tenancies must have an ESC
If after the safety inspection is completed, necessary rectification work is required, the landlord HAS to have the work completed within 28 days of the report.
Therefore, we recommend having the inspection carried out ASAP but definitely before 1st July 2020 so that you have enough time to allow for any required remedial work.
We are expecting all electrical contractors to be inundated with requests for the 1000’s of properties in the Andover (and surrounding area) private rented sector. Therefore leaving it to the last minute is not an approach we are prepared to risk.
We are therefore planning to have our entire portfolio of landlord properties tested without delay, allowing us time to communicate our findings to you in good time.
This approach will also ensure that costly voids are avoided between tenancies, waiting for an inspection, or worse, waiting for remedial work to be completed.
We will go ahead and start the roll-out of these inspections week commencing 24th February, unless we hear otherwise from you before this date.
If you agree with this strategy, you do not need to do anything.
If you wish to contact us to stop the inspection from taking place, please use the below form in order to notify us (Unless we hear from you before this date, we will go ahead and book the inspection).
The cost of the inspection will be £178 inc for all property in the SP4, SP9, SP10, SP11 & SN8 postcodes and £188 inc for all other property we manage outside of these postcodes.