For the conveyancing file
EICRs when a house is changing hands
Sales stall on open questions. The electrics are one of the easiest to close: one visit, one dated report, and a signed answer the solicitors can put in the file instead of another round of enquiries.
Selling or buying with a dated fuseboard? £675 clears it
Surveys stall sales over old fuseboards. For a flat £675 we fit a modern consumer unit with surge protection and include the full EICR - the exact paperwork a buyer's solicitor asks for. The board objection and the certificate question disappear in one appointment.
Buyers can use the same figure to negotiate with confidence: that is what fixing it actually costs.
What a survey misses
A homebuyer survey is a visual inspection. The surveyor is not going to isolate the supply, take the cover off the consumer unit or put instruments on the circuits, and their report will say so in the small print.
What you usually get instead is a line recommending further investigation of the electrical installation, with a note that it appears dated. That is not a fault list. It is a flag, and it leaves both sides guessing.
An EICR is the investigation the survey is asking for. It tests every final circuit and puts a number and a code against what it finds, so the conversation moves from "the electrics look old" to "these four items need attention, here is the price".
Selling or buying?
The report is the same. What you do with it is not.
If you are selling
Get the report done before the enquiries start and you control the story. A satisfactory report closes the question outright. An unsatisfactory one lets you price the remedials yourself and decide whether to fix them or reflect them in the asking price, rather than having a buyer's estimate dropped on you late in the chain.
It also stops the classic Dorset chain problem, where a survey on a period property in Wimborne or Sherborne throws up an electrical flag and two solicitors spend three weeks writing to each other about it.
If you are buying
Ask for access before exchange if the seller will allow it. You find out what the wiring is actually like, and if there is work to do you find out the cost before you commit, not after completion when the budget has gone.
If access before exchange is not possible, book it for the first fortnight after you get the keys. The house is empty, the power can go off freely, and anything that needs doing can be done before the flooring goes down.
Certificates and the conveyancing file
Solicitors want paper with a date, an address and a signature on it. What we can put in the file:
- The EICR itself. A signed PDF with the property address, the date of the inspection and the overall outcome.
- A written quote against each code, if the outcome is unsatisfactory, so the cost of putting it right is a number rather than an argument.
- A certificate for any work we do. If we change the fuseboard or clear remedials, the work gets its own paperwork.
- An updated report once the remedials are cleared, so the final version in the file reads satisfactory.
One point worth knowing: an EICR is a report on condition, not a certificate for new work. If the house has had a rewire or a new board and the paperwork has gone missing, an EICR gives a buyer a current condition report, but it does not retrospectively certify the installation work itself. We will tell you straight which of the two you are actually asking for.
How quickly can it happen?
It is one visit, and the report follows by email rather than in the post. When you ring we will tell you the earliest date we can get to the property, and we will not book it if we cannot make it work for your timescale. We would rather say no than hold up a chain.
Prices
EICR from £160. Fuseboard change from £625. Remedials quoted in writing off the report. The final quote is confirmed before any work starts.
Is the sale waiting on the electrics?
Tell us the address and where you are in the process. Anywhere in Dorset, from Poole and Christchurch out to Blandford Forum, Bridport and Weymouth.