No. If you are selling a home you live in, there is no legal requirement in England to have an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) or any other electrical certificate before you sell. The Law Society and the charity Electrical Safety First both say this plainly.
What you may need is the paperwork for any electrical work done since 1 January 2005, when electrical work in homes came under the Building Regulations. The property information form your conveyancer sends you (the Law Society TA6) asks for those certificates. Landlords have separate rules while a property is let, and a buyer taking on tenants will expect to see a current EICR. This guide explains which documents matter, what to do if they are missing, and when a pre-sale inspection is worth having.
"Electrical certificate" is used loosely for several different documents. They do different jobs, and a buyer's conveyancer asks about them for different reasons.
An EICR is a report on the condition of an existing installation: the wiring, sockets, light fittings, consumer unit (fuse box) and permanently connected equipment such as electric showers. An electrician inspects and tests it against BS 7671, the national wiring standard, and records whether any circuits are overloaded, whether there are shock risks or fire hazards, whether any work is defective and whether earthing or bonding is missing. It describes the installation's condition on the day of the inspection. It does not prove that past work was carried out properly or with the right approvals.
When an electrician installs something new, they issue a certificate confirming that the work meets BS 7671. A new-build home or a property that has been completely rewired should have an Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC). Minor work is recorded on a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate.
For "notifiable" work (explained below), there should also be a document showing that the work complies with the Building Regulations, not just the wiring standard. If a registered electrician did the work, the electrician or their scheme must give the occupier a Building Regulations Compliance Certificate and notify building control. If the work was notified to the council instead, the council issues a completion certificate once it is satisfied the work complies.
The Law Society's notes to the TA6 form state that "an EICR is not a legal requirement for the sale of property in England and Wales". Electrical Safety First gives the same answer, adding that an EICR can give a buyer peace of mind. So you can market and sell your home without one.
Since 1 January 2005, electrical installation work in homes has had to follow the Building Regulations. The relevant part is Part P. The list of notifiable work was narrowed on 6 April 2013, so some work in kitchens and outdoors no longer has to be notified to building control. In England, notifiable work is now:
Other work, such as adding a socket to an existing circuit outside a bathroom or replacing like for like, is not notifiable, although it should still be installed, inspected, tested and certified in line with BS 7671. Notifiable work has to be certified in one of three ways: self-certified by an electrician registered with a competent person scheme, checked by a registered third-party certifier, or approved by a building control body. Building regulations in Wales have differed from those in England since 31 July 2014, so the details differ there.
The 6th edition of the TA6 Property Information Form replaced earlier editions on 30 March 2026 and is mandatory for firms in the Law Society's Conveyancing Quality Scheme on new instructions. Questions 11.1 and 11.2 cover electrical installation work and certificates. The notes say most electrical work needs a building control completion certificate, the installer's Building Regulations Compliance Certificate or the BS 7671 Electrical Installation Certificate, and that if you have one you should answer "yes" to 11.2 and attach it. Question 11.3 deals with EICRs.
Your answers matter more than any single certificate. The Law Society's notes say buyers can rely on what you put in the form, that a buyer may be able to claim compensation after completion if you give misleading information, and that if you do not know an answer you must say so. If a document is lost, tell your solicitor rather than leaving the question blank. Our guide to the documents needed to sell a home covers the rest of the paperwork.
Landlords are in a different position. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 have been in force since 1 June 2020 and were extended to social housing in 2025, covering social tenancies granted after 1 December 2025 and older social tenancies from 1 May 2026. A landlord must:
Councils can impose a financial penalty of up to £40,000 for breaches. If you are selling with tenants in place, the Law Society notes that the buyer will want to check there is a current EICR and that it has been given to the tenant, so have the report and your proof of delivery ready. If you sell with vacant possession, no EICR is needed for the sale itself, but a buyer who plans to let will need a satisfactory report less than five years old before a new tenancy starts. Our guide to selling a property with tenants in situ covers the wider process.
Electrical Safety First points out that many buyers assume a standard home survey checks the electrics, and that it does not. It advises buyers to ask whether the electrics have been fully checked in the past ten years, to ask for a copy of the EICR, and to arrange one if there is none, because a full rewire can be expensive and is worth knowing about before a price is agreed. Expect a well-advised buyer to ask these questions, and to commission their own inspection if you cannot answer them. Our guide on which home survey to choose explains what each level of survey covers.
Under the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook, the conveyancer acting for the buyer's lender must take reasonable steps to make sure the property has building regulation approval for any change since it was built. Where there is evidence of a breach, the conveyancer judges whether enforcement is a realistic prospect, and in some cases the lender will want indemnity insurance before completion. A missing certificate is therefore something the conveyancers will need to resolve before completion.
An EICR records the condition of the installation on one day. It does not transfer responsibility to the buyer or protect you if your TA6 answers were wrong. What protects you is answering accurately and handing over the documents you have. Our article on how long you are liable after selling a house explains this in more detail.
Use an electrician registered with a government-approved competent person scheme. GOV.UK points homeowners to the Electrical Competent Person Register to find one or to check that a firm belongs to a scheme. For notifiable work, a registered electrician deals with building control for you, so you do not pay building control charges, and you receive both the BS 7671 certificate and the Building Regulations Compliance Certificate. Prices for an EICR and for any remedial work vary between firms, so ask more than one registered electrician for a written quote.
The report classifies anything found using these codes:
Any C1 or C2 means the report will state the installation is unsatisfactory for continued use. For a landlord, remedial work on C1 and C2 items, and any further investigation the report calls for, must be done within the legal deadline. An owner-occupier is not under the same legal duty, but these are safety problems, and a buyer who sees them will raise them. If you fix them, keep the certificate for the remedial work with the report.
Gaps in paperwork are common, especially where work was done by a previous owner. Your options are:
If you are getting ready to sell in or around Cambridge, you can request a valuation from our team and we can talk you through the paperwork buyers are likely to ask for.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Speak to a solicitor or licensed conveyancer about your own circumstances.
No. An EICR is not a legal requirement for selling a home in England. Landlords must have one for a let property, and a buyer taking on tenants will want to see it.
There is no rule that a sale cannot go ahead without one, but the TA6 form asks for certificates for electrical work done since 1 January 2005. If notifiable work has no certificate, your conveyancer may suggest regularisation or indemnity insurance.
For rented homes, the next inspection must be within 5 years, or sooner if the report says so. For owner-occupied homes there is no legal interval, but Electrical Safety First recommends an inspection every 10 years.
An EICR reports on the condition of an existing installation. An Electrical Installation Certificate confirms that new work, such as a rewire, was installed to BS 7671 when it was done.
Not in the way an EICR does. Electrical Safety First warns that the standard home survey does not cover electrical safety, so buyers who want certainty should arrange an EICR.
Tell your solicitor and say so on the TA6. The installer's scheme or the council may hold a record, and if not, the options are regularisation through your local authority building control or an indemnity policy.
