Building Regulation Part P for electrical installations within a domestic property.

I am constantly amazed how many homeowners contact us when they are either planning on selling or renting their home explaining to us that they have had electrical work carried out in their property but have not received a Part P Building Regulations Compliance Certifciate for the work. Invariably the purchasers solicitor, surveyor, letting agent or in some cases an insurance company are requesting both the installation certificate issued at the time the work was carried out by the electrician, and asking why there is no Part P Building Regulations Compliance Certificate lodged with the local authority. In a lot of cases this is due to the owners not being aware of this crucial piece of legislation that was first introduced in 2005. Since then it has been necessary that certain works carried out within a domestic environment, or works carried out within certain areas within that home are certified as complying to Part P of building regulations. This has to be done by the electrician that carried out the work, anyone using a third party to certify their work is breaking the law and are subject to prosecution from the local authority. Properly qualified and registered electricians and electrical contracting companies are regularly assesed on their work and are able to certify that their work complies with the relevant regulations and registers each notifiable job through their governing body. Their governing body then issues a Part P Compliance Certificate to both the homeowner as well as the local authority responsible for the area that the property is in. Unfortunately, the homeowner is ultimately responsible for making sure that the electrician they use is properly registered, and able to carry out and then certify the notifiable work. We hear every week from homeowners that the electrician they employed informed them he was properly qualified and registered before the work began, but then either wasnt able to issue the certificate or was relying on another electrician that was registered to certify the work. So time goes by and the homeowner is blissfully unaware that not only could they have had a potentially dangerous job carried out but they will have trouble selling or letting the property later on. In the majority of cases we have encountered it was impossible to guarantee the integrity of the installed cable etc as it had been covered during the works or for some other reason it was not possible to inspect the circuits completely. When this occurs the only choice for the homeowner is to employ a properly registered electrician to carry out the work again. There is no such thing as ignorance of the law as a defence and local authority's will only accept a Part P certificate issued by the company responsible for the installation, inspection and testing of the work. Buyer beware should be at the forefront of any homeowner contemplating certain electrical works within their home. We are also regularly contacted by homeowners that have carried out their own work.  "It's my house, I can do what work I want in my own home" they state.  Sadly they can't. Everyone is aware that for gas work within your home you must only employ a gas engineer who is GasSafe registered. At the time this law was introduced a great deal of time and money was spent by the government educating members of the public about this essential and common sense law. There could be an argument that in 2005 only a small fraction of public money was used to educate people to the electrical requirements compared with the CORGI introduction. Notwithstanding, Part P has now been with us for over a decade and so ignorance is no excuse for what usually amounts to homeowners trying to save a few pounds to get the job done. Even electricians that have been happily working within the industry for over 40 years were told at the time that unless they had adequate qualifications to inspect and test their work they would not be able to carry out certain works within a domestic environment. Those of us that have the required qualifications, are properly registered and pay the additional fees each year to maintain our ability to certify work to local authorities have little sympathy for these cowboys that continue to leave members of our communities at risk. For more information regarding Part P of the building regulations and what your options are if you have not received a Part P Compliance Certificate check our website www.electriciansoncall.com