EICR requirements for landlords: the 5-year rule and the 28-day duties

Every rented home in England needs an Electrical Installation Condition Report at least every five years - or sooner, if the report itself says so. Getting the inspection done is the easy part. The duties that follow it, all measured in days rather than years, are where landlords get caught.

What the codes mean

• C1 - danger present, risk of injury. Immediate action required; a competent electrician should normally make it safe on the spot.
• C2 - potentially dangerous. Remedial work required.
• C3 - improvement recommended. Advisory only: a report with nothing worse than C3s is still satisfactory and needs no work.
• FI - further investigation required, without delay.

A report is unsatisfactory if it contains any C1, C2 or FI. That's the word to look for on the front page - not a vague sense that the electrician 'seemed happy'.

The 28-day clock after an unsatisfactory report

Where remedial or further investigative work is required, you must have it completed within 28 days - or sooner if the report specifies a shorter period. You then need written confirmation from the electrician that the work is done and the installation is safe, and you must supply that confirmation, with the original report, to the tenant and to the local authority within 28 days of the work finishing. Doing the work and not evidencing it is, on paper, still a breach.

Who gets a copy, and when

• Existing tenants: within 28 days of the inspection.
• New tenants: before they occupy the property.
• Prospective tenants: within 28 days of a request.
• The local authority: within 7 days of a request.
• The next inspector: keep the previous report so it can be handed over at the next inspection.

Don't assume five years

Five years is the maximum, not a default. If the electrician recommends a three-year retest, three years is your interval, and diarising five will leave you unwittingly out of date for two of them. Councils can serve a remedial notice, arrange the work themselves and recover the cost from you, and impose a civil penalty of up to £30,000 per breach - and 'breach' includes the copy and confirmation duties as well as the inspection itself.

Sources: Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 · GOV.UK guidance for landlords on electrical safety standards. General information, not legal advice, as at August 2026.