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[scooterkelly]

Hi, I hope somebody can clear up a little confusion for me. About 3 years ago i paid somebody to do a full rewire of my house. the guy i used worked as an electrician for the local council. before the job started i asked him if all the works would be up to current regs and ceertified, he confidently replied yes. when the job was completed i asked him about certs he then told me that he was unable to give me a cert because he can only issue them through official council work. Me being young, naive and in a major rush to get into my new house settled for this. The guy was a friend of the family and i fully trust his work, but i think he just conned me a bit to get his job on the side as it were. Is anybody able to tell me how i can get this work certified? i understand this is a problem because sparkies don't like certifying work they haven't done, understandably. Im sure there are people in similar situations so surely there is a way to do this?

thanks for any advice

[ericmark]

Only the electrician who does the work can sign an installation certificate. This is nothing to do with Part P. With Part P only a registered electrician or the local authority can sign a completion certificate. If the electrician was to die during the job then only option would be to have the work inspected and get a periodic inspection report and inform the council would would charge their fee and issue a completion certificate.

However in 2008 the regulations changed and anyone inspecting work done before 2008 is likely to highlight loads on non compliance with the regulations.

There is no reason why any spark can't write out his own installation certificate and for you not to get one rings alarm bells. It may be he was not allowed by his firm to do electrical work and didn't want any thing which could prove he was breaking his rules of employment but that seems unlikely and more likely he had no test equipment and was just crossing his fingers nothing was wrong.

The best way would be to get him to write out an installation certificate even if you need to hire test gear. He would have needed public liability insurance but to test other peoples work will require professional indemnity insurance and so many electricians will not do PIR's because their insurance will not cover.

If you can't get him to do it then likely local authority building control will be way forward and of course they will be asking some questions which you may not want to answer. I have seen genuine mistakes where building work was being done and the electrician thought it was all being covered by building control but the application had missed out the electrical work. But unless the electrician can see the work he is doing is part of a larger job he must realise since 2004 it would require Part P and really he has no excuse. And of course neither have you as you as the house holder are responsible for informing the council. If the electrician says he thought the work was being inspected by the council you would have a hard job to prove he is lying. This would not be helped by the time lag between work being completed and you reporting the law breaking.

Where the work is A1 the council has until lately not being prosecuting and have just issued the certificates but of late I have heard the council have been clamping down on Part P.

In theory they could ask you to get the house re-wired. Unlikely in practice unless they find it faulty.

Likely the consumer unit will not be to current regulations and if I was in your position I would get a registered spark to change the consumer unit and do a periodic inspection. Since he would issued a completion certificate and installation for the consumer unit change plus a periodic inspection report most solicitors would accept that as the paperwork for a house sale.

Personally I would not want to get local council involved as it could be opening a can of worms. Much depends on local council and I found mine were very helpful when a builder ran off without completing the work on my parents house and because they were disabled did not charge and allowed me to sign all the installation certificates. But I had no option council were already involved due to it being work for my mothers disability.

And I have no knowledge as to what happened to builder and they did stop trading so maybe the council did do something about their breaking of the law!

Maybe some of the others will give you some advice!

[TheDoctor4]

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