Electrical Safety Standards

This email affects electrical safety standards in England.

Provisions were made in the Housing and Planning Act 2016, for the Secretary of State to make regulations about electrical safety standards for properties let by private landlords. (Commencement No. 11) brings sections 122 and 123 into force for future regulations to be written.

As of 25 October 2019 the Secretary of the State has the power to make the regulations which will provide the electrical safety standards to be met by all residential landlords.

Section 122 – Electrical safety standards for properties let by private landlords

 The standards specified or determined in accordance with the regulations are:

• Installations in the premises for the supply of electric
• Electrical fixtures, fittings or appliances

The regulations may also make provisions on how and when checks are carried out and who is qualified to carry out the checks.

The duties imposed on the landlord may be:

• A qualified person checks that the electrical safety standards are met.
• A certificate is obtained from the qualified person and to ensure a copy is given to a prospective tenant, a tenant or any other person specified in the regulations.

Section 123 – Electrical safety standards enforcement

The provisions that may be made regarding enforcement are:

• A landlord who fails to comply with a duty imposed by the regulations to pay a financial penalty ( or more than one penalty in the event of a continuing failure)
• Conferring power on a local housing authority to arrange for a person to enter the premises, with the consent of the tenant, to remedy any failure by the landlord to comply with the duty imposed by the regulations.

The Secretary of the State will also be looking at the procedure to be followed in imposing penalties, how much the penalties will be and also enabling the local housing authority to recover from the landlord any costs incurred by it in remedying the failure.

Please see the link for the prospective changes http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2016/22/part/5/crossheading/electrical-safety-standards?view=extent