Buying and selling
No law requires an EICR to sell a home
Nothing in the conveyancing process requires one, and no seller has to produce one. There are still situations where getting one answers a question that would otherwise stall things.
Arrange an EICR
Three questions and a postcode. We match you to a qualified local electrician.
What a survey does instead
A homebuyer survey assesses the property as a whole. It is not an electrical inspection and normally says so, usually by recommending a separate one where the wiring looks dated or the installation could not be assessed.
If your survey flagged the electrics, an EICR is the thing it was pointing at.
When it is worth having as a buyer
- The survey recommended one
- The consumer unit looks original to a property of some age
- The seller cannot say when the property was last rewired or inspected
- You are planning work that will extend or alter the installation
When it is worth having as a seller
Mainly to stop a question becoming a negotiation. A current report answers what the buyer's solicitor may ask and removes an unknown that otherwise gets priced in.
It is not a requirement and there is no obligation to commission one.
The moment you let it out, this changes
If the property becomes a rented home, the five-yearly duty applies and the report stops being optional. Buying with the intention of letting is the case where getting one early is straightforwardly useful.
What you get
A report records circuits, codes and limitations
The verdict is the least useful part. What matters is the schedule of test results behind it, the coded observations, and an honest record of anything the inspection could not reach.
A ticked box and nothing else is a verdict with no working shown. Worth knowing before you accept one, whoever arranged it.
Standards
The standards every inspection is carried out to
An EICR is only as good as the person signing it. Every inspection here is carried out to these standards, and each one is checked against the issuing body's own register rather than taken on trust.
Qualified to inspect, not just to install
Inspecting an existing installation is a separate qualification from wiring a new one. A good installer is not automatically the right person to sign a report.
Registered with a competent person scheme
Checked on the scheme's own public register, not a badge on a website.
Public liability insurance, in date
We check the certificate and the expiry date, not just that one exists. A lapsed policy is the most common reason to turn someone away.
You get the test results
Not just a pass or fail. The report lists each circuit and the readings taken, which is the part worth checking.
Working to the current standard
BS 7671 as amended in 2026. That amendment changed which findings make a report unsatisfactory, and not everyone has caught up.
Reviews you can read
Not a star rating with no detail behind it. We publish no figure of our own, because we have none to publish yet.
Scheme registration and insurance details come with your quote, so you can check them against the public register yourself. How we choose electricians sets out every check, including what gets someone turned away.
Next step
Send your postcode and get a real quote
If your current report has months left, that is what you will be told.
Questions
Buying or selling questions
Does a house sale need an electrical certificate?
No. Nothing in the sale process requires an EICR, and there is no electrical equivalent of an EPC.
The seller has a report from six years ago. Is it valid?
Validity is not really the right frame outside rented property, where the five-year duty applies. An older report tells you what was true then, and the installation may have been altered since.
Can I ask the seller to fix what the report finds?
You can ask. There is no obligation on them to do so, and it becomes a negotiation like any other survey finding.
Get a quote
Arrange an EICR
Five fields. We reply with either a fixed price or the one thing we still need to know.
- No cost, and no obligation to book anything
- We come back with a date or a question, not a sales call
- A fixed price for the work described, in writing
Would rather talk it through? Leave a number in the form and say so in the details, and we will ring you rather than emailing back.