If you own and live in your own flat or house, the picture is different — and most pages don't say so. Here is the actual position, and when it still makes sense to get one anyway.
The legal duty is for rented homes, not owner-occupied ones
The relevant law is the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020/312). The name tells you the scope: it applies to the private rented sector. Regulation 3 sets out what a landlord must do under a specified tenancy — inspect and test the installation, do so at intervals of no more than five years, supply a copy of the report to the tenant within 28 days, carry out any required remedial work within 28 days, and give written confirmation once that's done. Regulation 4 sits alongside this and gives the local housing authority a power to serve a remedial notice — that's a council power, not something a landlord does to themselves.
None of that applies if you own and occupy the property yourself. There is no equivalent statutory duty compelling an owner-occupier to hold a five-yearly EICR, and if anyone tells you otherwise for your own home, ask them to point to the regulation — because we could not find one, and we're not going to invent one to make this page sound more urgent than it is.
If you're a landlord and want the duty explained properly rather than in summary, our guide to EICR landlord requirements in London covers regulation 3 in full, and EICR certificates for landlords covers how we carry them out.
So why would a homeowner ever get one?
Because "not legally required" isn't the same as "not worth doing." A few situations come up repeatedly with owner-occupiers in W1, W2, NW8 and W9:
- Buying an older property. Period conversions in this area carry decades of alterations behind the plaster — different eras of wiring, boards added to rather than replaced, work done by people who are long gone. An inspection before or shortly after completion tells you what you've actually bought, rather than what the seller assumed.
- Selling. Some buyers, and some of their surveyors or mortgage valuers, will ask for one, or ask why you don't have one. This is a different question from the landlord duty, and if that's what's brought you here, our page on the electrical certificate for selling a flat is the right one to read next.
- Before you insure or re-insure. Some insurers ask about the condition or age of the electrics, particularly on older properties or after a claim. We can't tell you what your specific insurer requires — that's a question for your policy documents or broker — but if it's asked, an EICR is the document that answers it.
- Before a refurbishment. If you're about to strip out a kitchen or bathroom, it makes little sense to work around wiring you haven't looked at. Better to know the state of the board before the plasterer arrives than after.
- After a fault, a fright, or a DIY history you didn't create. Scorched sockets, a board that trips for no obvious reason, or a previous owner's visible amateur wiring are all reasons to get the installation checked rather than guessed at.
None of these turn an EICR into a legal requirement for an owner-occupier. They just mean it's a sensible, occasional check — closer to a boiler service than a compliance certificate.
What an EICR actually is, whoever asks for it
An Electrical Installation Condition Report is an inspection and test carried out against BS 7671, the wiring regulations, covering the fixed installation — the consumer unit, the circuits, the earthing and bonding, the wired-in accessories. It doesn't cover your appliances or lamps. The report records observations against a set of codes, and it's the codes — not a simple pass/fail — that tell you whether anything needs fixing. If you've never had one explained to you, it's worth reading through rather than filing it, because a coded observation you don't understand is easy to either over-worry about or ignore.
Don't confuse this with Part P notifiable work
A separate and frequently muddled topic is "notifiable electrical work" under the Building Regulations. Under regulation 12(6A) of the Building Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2214), certain electrical work in a dwelling is notifiable: putting in a new circuit, replacing a consumer unit, or adding to or altering an existing circuit in a special location. A special location is not "the whole bathroom" — it's the zone around a bath tap or shower head, extending up to 2.25m high and 0.6m out. Work outside that zone, or work that doesn't touch an existing circuit, may not be notifiable at all.
This matters because it's a completely different question from whether you need an EICR. An EICR is a condition report on what already exists. Notifiable work is about whether new or altered work has to be signed off through a competent person scheme or building control. If you're planning bathroom electrics as part of a refurbishment, our guide on consumer unit upgrade regulations and our page on extractor fan installation in a bathroom both touch on where that line sits — but don't rely on either as the final word for your specific job; get that confirmed by the electrician doing the work.
Leaseholders: know what's yours before you book anything
If you own a flat rather than a house, the installation you're responsible for usually stops at your own consumer unit and the wiring within your demise. Risers, communal lighting and shared supply infrastructure are typically the freeholder's or the block's responsibility, but that boundary is set by your specific lease, not by a general rule — check it before assuming either way. Where a refurbishment touches wiring in a period building, our rewiring in a period property guide covers what tends to surface once floors and walls are opened up.
If you decide to get one
There's no five-year clock forcing your hand, so the sensible approach is to have it done at a natural point — on purchase, before a refurbishment, or if something about the electrics is making you uneasy. Our electrical call-outs start from £80, excluding VAT, and if a fault-find turns into a fuller inspection we'll say so and price it properly before doing anything, rather than let a small call-out quietly become a bigger bill. For current EICR pricing and what drives the cost up or down, see our breakdown on EICR certificate cost in London, and for the fuller picture of what an unsatisfactory result means in practice, landlord electrical safety standards explains the coding even though the underlying duty there is a rented-sector one, not yours.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. If you're relying on an EICR — or the absence of one — to satisfy a lender, an insurer, a buyer or a tenancy, confirm the current requirement for your specific situation rather than taking it from a web page. If you'd like a straightforward inspection with the findings actually explained to you, get in touch and tell us what's prompted the question.