Every five years the fixed electrical installation in a rented home in England has to be inspected and tested by a qualified person. The report that comes back is a compliance document, and a useful one. It is not an inventory.
The two get confused often enough to be worth separating properly. One says the wiring was checked on a given date by someone competent to check it. The other says what the property looked like when the keys changed hands. Neither can stand in for the other, and treating one as though it could causes trouble that surfaces months later, at the point when it is hardest to put right.
What follows is a summary rather than a substitute for the guidance itself. GOV.UK sets out the duty in full, including what has to happen once the report arrives and who enforces the standards.
The installation, not the appliances
The five year duty concerns the fixed installation: the consumer unit, the circuits, the wiring accessories, earthing and bonding. It does not cover the kettle, the tumble dryer or the tenant's own television. Anything that plugs in is a separate question, and a report on the installation tells you nothing about it.
The document is often called an electrical safety certificate. That is a fair description of what it is for, if not quite what it is.
The distinction comes up at inventories more than you might expect. Landlords ask whether the electrics have been checked and mean the whole lot: installation, appliances, alarm heads, everything with a wire in it. The honest answer is that these are different records, held by different people, and a clerk with a clipboard is none of them.
What an inventory records about the electrics
A clerk records what is visible and accessible at a point in time. In practice that means:
- the consumer unit, its position and general appearance, usually photographed, including where it sits inside a cupboard or behind a removable panel
- sockets, switches, light fittings and pull cords, room by room, with counts and condition
- visible damage: cracked plates, missing screws, a socket painted over, a switch moved or added to
- outside sockets, garden lighting, and any supply to a garage, shed or outbuilding
- storage heaters, immersion heaters and extractor fans, recorded as fittings rather than tested as equipment
- the meter position and type, which matters at check in and again at check out
The wording matters as much as the list. A clerk records that a socket plate is undamaged and secure at the time of inspection. They do not record that the circuit behind it is sound, because they have not tested it and could not certify it if they had.
The same list is read backwards at the end of the tenancy. A cracked plate noted on day one cannot fairly be described as new at check out, and the photograph taken on that first day is what shows the difference. Memory does not do it, and neither does an assumption about who would have caused the damage.
Where the dates do not line up
The date on the electrical report and the date of the tenancy are rarely the same, and that gap is where the practical problems live.
A five year cycle will usually outlast a single tenancy and sometimes several. A report obtained for one letting may still be current for the next, provided the dates line up when the new tenancy starts. Where work has been carried out in between, a consumer unit replaced after a fault, a circuit added for a shower, an outside socket installed for a mower, the property has changed and the record should say so. That is a change note during the tenancy, not a correction at the end of it.
A first let in a new build is its own case. There may be a handover pack, a building control certificate and a developer's snagging list, and none of them is an inventory. The clerk still records the accessories as found, because the day the tenant moves in is the only day that record can be made.
Where a report identifies something requiring attention, that is a management action for the landlord under the guidance. It is not something an inventory resolves, and a clerk should not be writing an opinion on it.
Before the clerk arrives
- Keep the electrical report with the tenancy file, alongside the gas record and the energy certificate, rather than in three separate places.
- Note the date of the last inspection and the next due date somewhere a clerk or agent will see it.
- Tell the clerk where the consumer unit is if it hides behind a coat rail in a hallway cupboard. Ten minutes saved on the day is a better record.
- Mention any electrical work done since the last report, so the record reflects the property as it now stands.
- For agents managing several properties, one file per property beats a folder per contractor.
What the inventory cannot settle
An inventory is evidence of condition at a defined moment. It supports a conversation between the parties; it does not settle one, and no clerk decides liability or the outcome of a dispute. The same restraint applies here as anywhere else. The record shows what was visible, not what caused it, and not whether the installation would pass another inspection tomorrow.
Read the two documents together and each does its own job well. The electrical report says the installation has been inspected and tested by a qualified person on a given date. The inventory says what the property looked like when the keys changed hands. Keep both, date both, and neither has to pretend to be the other.