It isn't, quite. The EICR is a periodic testing duty. It sits alongside a separate, older duty that has nothing to do with five-year intervals: the obligation to repair. They get confused constantly, and the confusion is expensive, because they answer different questions and they are triggered differently.
Two duties, not one
The first duty is the one most landlords now know by name. Under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 (SI 2020/312), regulation 3, a landlord must have the electrical installation in a privately rented home inspected and tested by a qualified person (regulation 3(1)(b)), at intervals of no more than five years (regulation 3(2)(a)), supply the tenant with a copy of the report within 28 days of the inspection (regulation 3(3)), carry out any remedial work the report requires within 28 days, or sooner if the report specifies (regulation 3(4)), and provide written confirmation that the work has been completed (regulation 3(5)). That whole chain is a scheduled, dated exercise — you know when it falls due, and our EICR landlord requirements guide covers what each step involves and how the certificate itself is priced.
The second duty is not scheduled at all. Under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, section 11(1)(b), a landlord letting a dwelling-house on a lease of less than seven years (section 13(1)) has an implied covenant to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the property for the supply of electricity — alongside gas, water and sanitation. This is not an inspection duty. It is a duty to fix things once you know about them, and it is triggered the moment the landlord has notice of the defect, whether that notice comes from the tenant, an agent, or the landlord's own attention. There is no fixed number of days written into the Act. The standard the courts apply is that repairs must be carried out within a reasonable time of notice — and what counts as reasonable moves with the nature of the fault. A dead socket in a spare room is not the same conversation as no power at all, or scorching around a switch.
Why the distinction matters in practice
A landlord can be fully up to date on the EICR — certificate current, remedials from three years ago all signed off — and still be in breach of the section 11 repairing covenant, because a tenant reported a tripping consumer unit last month and nothing was done about it. The EICR being valid tells you the installation was safe on the day it was tested. It says nothing about a fault that has developed since, and it is the repairing covenant, not the EICR interval, that governs what happens next.
The reverse is also true. A landlord who responds instantly to every tenant complaint but has let an EICR lapse past five years is meeting the repairing duty and failing the regulatory one — those are two separate obligations under two separate instruments, and being conscientious about one does not discharge the other.
In other words: the EICR is what you schedule. The repairing duty is what you respond to. A landlord who only thinks in five-year cycles will be caught out by the fault that turns up in year two.
What "notice" actually looks like
Section 11 turns on the landlord (or their agent) knowing about the problem. That is usually a message from the tenant, so the practical discipline is simple: acknowledge every electrical report the same day, and ask for a photograph or a short video of what's happening — a fitting that's warm to the touch, a board that trips on a specific appliance, a light that flickers on and off. That single piece of evidence tells a competent electrician far more than a description, and it is often what separates "book it in for next week" from "get someone there today." Our guide to a tripping fuse board and no power in the flat works from that same starting point.
What counts as urgent
Not every electrical report needs a same-day visit, but some categories should always be treated that way, because delay converts them from a minor repair into a safety issue or a bigger bill:
- No power in part or all of the flat — this can be a fault inside the installation or a supply issue outside it, and the two need different people.
- A board that trips repeatedly, especially on a specific circuit or appliance — a genuine fault, not a nuisance to be reset and ignored.
- Heat, scorching, buzzing or a burning smell from any socket, switch or fitting — always treat as urgent.
- Water near electrics, from a leak above a light fitting or a socket near a wet area — stop using the circuit and get it checked before anyone touches it again.
Everything less urgent than that — a single dead socket with power elsewhere, a switch plate that's come loose, a dimmer that no longer dims smoothly — can usually wait for a planned visit, and batching several small jobs into one attendance is where landlords actually save money.
When the two duties meet
The place they genuinely overlap is where a tenant's electrical fault report turns out to be the same underlying problem an EICR would flag anyway — an old consumer unit with no RCD protection, tired wiring behind a socket that's been repeatedly repaired rather than replaced. If your last EICR is more than a couple of years old and you're getting recurring electrical complaints, it's worth having the installation properly assessed rather than fixing the symptom each time. Our page on landlord electrical safety standards sets out how those findings are usually categorised, and EICR certificates for landlords covers how a report and any remedial work are priced once you know what you're dealing with.
If the let property is a licensed House in Multiple Occupation, there is a further layer of mandatory conditions on top of both of the above — that's a separate topic in its own right, covered on our HMO licensing in Westminster page, and it does not replace either the repairing covenant or the five-year EICR duty; it sits alongside them.
What to do with a report today
Send us a photo or short description of what the tenant has reported through our contact form or on WhatsApp, and we'll tell you whether it needs a same-day visit or can be planned in. Electrical call-outs and fault-finding start from £80 excluding VAT (see our full price list), and anything with a defined scope is quoted as a fixed price before work begins — see our electrical fault-finding page for how a visit typically runs.
Nothing on this page is legal advice. Repairing obligations and their exact scope depend on the specific lease and the facts of each case, and if a dispute over disrepair or an EICR compliance question is live, get advice on your specific tenancy rather than relying on a general guide.