Coventry landlord fined under new compliance legislation
The first landlord in England to be fined under the recently introduced Electrical Safety Standards legislation is from Coventry.
As of July 2021, all residential landlords in England must ensure that the electrical installations in the property are safe and are inspected and tested at least every five years. Wales will be bringing in the same legislation, as part of larger reforms, on 15th July 2022 We did a webinar on the changes coming to Wales this summer, which you can check out on our dashboard.
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Under the EICR regulations:
- The inspection must be carried out by a “competent person”
- An Electrical Safety Certificate must be issued
- A copy of the certificate must be made available to the appropriate authorities if required (within seven days of the request)
- A copy of it given to the tenants within 28 days.
A fine of £1,600 was imposed by Coventry City Council after the unnamed landlord was given seven days to provide a certificate, but subsequently failed to. A remedial notice requiring further action to be taken will now be served by the council. You can check you’re fully compliant with our free checklist.
A landlord’s EICR responsibilities
In this case, a suitably qualified and competent electrician should have undertaken the check and produced the EICR report on or around 1st April 2020. The check and accompanying report would have shown the electrical installation in the property was safe. A copy of the report should then have been provided to the tenant.
Property Licensing and Housing Enforcement Manager for Coventry City Council, Adrian Chowns, said:
We believe this is the first time these powers have been used by a Local Authority in England. It highlights how Coventry City Council are taking a proactive approach to enforcement and clamping down on rogue landlords in its city.
You need to make sure that your EICR is updated every 5 years or, as in this case, you could face a major fine. We also highly recommend that you hang onto your historic documentation, as you never know when you might need it! You can use our free Document Storage Tool to store everything in one place and even remind you when your certificates are close to expiring!
