Electrical Certificates When Selling a House: What Buyers Ask For (2026)

Do you need an electrical certificate when selling a house in England? Not by law, if it’s the home you live in: no electrical report is legally required for a sale. What the buyer’s conveyancer will ask about, through the Law Society’s TA6 form, is electrical work done since 1 January 2005 and the certificates that go with it, and gaps in that paperwork can slow a sale down.

We’re electricians based in Christchurch. Here’s what each document is, and what to do when yours can’t be found.

Do you need an electrical certificate when selling a house?

For a home you own and live in, no. The Law Society’s explanatory notes for the TA6 form put it plainly: “An EICR is not a legal requirement for the sale of property in England and Wales.” Electrical Safety First agrees, adding that a report “will give your buyer peace of mind”.

The certificate the law does demand is an Energy Performance Certificate, which GOV.UK says you must order before you market a property for sale. The electrical questions come from the buyer’s side, and they’re about evidence for past work rather than a fresh inspection.

Good to know An EICR isn’t a legal requirement for selling a home you live in, in England, though a buyer may still ask for one.

What the TA6 form asks about your electrics

The TA6 Property Information Form is the questionnaire a seller completes for the buyer’s conveyancer. Its 6th edition (2025) has been compulsory for members of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme on new instructions since 30 March 2026; a sale that started earlier may still use an older edition. The electrics come up in three places:

• Questions 11.1 and 11.2: electrical installation work and certificates. If you know of electrical work and hold one of the certificates below, the notes tell you to answer “yes” to 11.2 and attach it.
• Question 11.3: the Electrical Installation Condition Report. Landlords must have a current EICR, the notes explain, and a buyer who intends to let will want to see one.
• Section 5: alterations. An installer in a competent person scheme should have given you a competent person certificate when the work was finished.

Buyers can rely on your answers, the Law Society warns, and misleading information can lead to a compensation claim after completion. If you don’t know an answer, say so. Everything here applies to England.

EIC, Minor Works, EICR and Building Regulations certificates compared

Most electrical work, the Law Society’s notes say, needs one of three documents: a building control completion certificate, the installer’s Building Regulations Compliance Certificate, or the BS 7671 Electrical Installation Certificate. Add the Minor Works certificate and the EICR:

Document	What it covers	Issued by
Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC)	A new installation, a new circuit or a replacement consumer unit	The electrician
Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate	Small jobs with no new circuit, such as an extra socket or a moved switch	The electrician
Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR)	The existing installation’s condition on the day it’s tested, within the extent agreed	The inspector
Building Regulations compliance certificate	Notifiable work by an installer in a competent person scheme	The installer or their scheme, within 30 days
Building control completion certificate	Notifiable work checked by the council instead	The local authority

The IET’s model forms for Amendment 4 of BS 7671, dated 15 April 2026, keep these apart: the EIC “can not be used for the inspection and testing of an existing electrical installation”, and the EICR “is only to be used for reporting on the condition of an existing electrical installation”. People often ask for an EICR certificate, though the form itself is titled a report. The two certificates, meanwhile, say they’ll show a new owner that the work complied with BS 7671 when it was certified, which is why buyers ask for them.

Good to know An EIC or Minor Works certificate covers one job, while an EICR reports on the condition of the existing installation on the day it’s tested.

Which jobs needed notifying under Part P

Electrical work in homes has followed the Building Regulations since 1 January 2005. In England, regulation 12(6A) makes three kinds of job notifiable, needing Building Regulations sign-off on top of the electrician’s certificate:

• installing a new circuit,
• replacing a consumer unit,
• adding to or altering existing circuits in a special location: within 0.6 m of a bath or shower tray, up to 2.25 m high (or the shower head, if higher), or a room with a swimming pool or sauna heater.

Since 6 April 2013, when Approved Document P’s 2013 edition took effect, everything else has been non-notifiable, though it should still be inspected, tested and certificated to BS 7671. An extra socket on an existing kitchen circuit, for example, should come with a Minor Works certificate. Before that date the list was longer: the Law Society’s notes say some kitchen and outdoor work needed a certificate then that doesn’t now.

So a consumer unit replacement or a full rewire of the house should leave you with two documents: the EIC and a Building Regulations certificate. For smaller jobs, our guide on whether a handyman can take on electrical work explains where the line falls.

Is an EICR legally required to sell your home?

No, but it can help. Electrical Safety First tells buyers the standard home survey won’t cover electrical safety, and to ask whether the electrics have been fully checked in the past ten years, arranging an EICR if there’s no report. A recent one in your sale pack answers that before it’s asked, which makes a case for booking an inspection of your wiring before you list. Bear in mind:

• It’s a snapshot. It records the condition on the inspection date, and on the IET’s form an unsatisfactory result means dangerous (C1) or potentially dangerous (C2) conditions were found.
• It doesn’t replace past paperwork. It answers question 11.3, not 11.2, and isn’t among the three documents the Law Society lists for past work.

Tracking down certificates you’ve lost

Start with your own files, then work outwards:

• The electrician. The IET’s forms say whoever issued a certificate should have kept a duplicate.
• Their scheme. If a registered installer won’t provide the compliance certificate, Electrical Safety First says to contact the certification body.
• The council. Building control must keep the notices installers send it. Christchurch has been in BCP Council’s area since April 2019; the council will search its records for the owner or a solicitor acting in the sale: a search fee of £55 plus VAT (£66) per address as of October 2026, for completion certificates and decision notices from the last 15 years, usually within 10 working days of payment.

If you’re not sure the work was notified at the time, speak to your solicitor before approaching the council (the indemnity section explains why), and tell them about anything you can’t find.

When the paperwork never existed

Sometimes there’s nothing to find: the work was never notified, or was done by someone who couldn’t certify it. Talk to your conveyancer before contacting the council, because the order can matter.

Your situation	The usual route
Wiring older than 1 January 2005	No Part P sign-off to find; an EICR shows its condition
Certificate lost, but the work was notified	The electrician, their scheme or council records
Notifiable work that was never notified	Regularisation, or an indemnity policy through your conveyancer
An electrician claimed to be registered but wasn’t	Trading Standards, plus an EICR, says Electrical Safety First

Electrical Safety First says that EICR can stand as documentation for the work; it shows the condition, but only the council can regularise the work after the event.

Regularisation through BCP Council

Under regulation 18 of the Building Regulations 2010, an owner can apply to the council for a regularisation certificate for unauthorised building work done on or after 11 November 1985. For electrics, that means notifiable work done since 2005 without the right notice. What to expect:

Stage	What to expect
Inspection	The council can ask you to lay the work open, make tests and take samples. BCP Council says this may mean exposing the structure, and the work must be found satisfactory before it issues a certificate.
Any fixes	You’re told what, if anything, must change to meet the rules that applied when the work was done.
The charge	BCP Council’s regularisation charge is paid with the application, carries no VAT and isn’t refundable.

Don’t open up wiring yourself ahead of a visit: testing and remedial work are for an electrician. The certificate is evidence the requirements were met, though “not conclusive evidence”, the regulation says.

Indemnity policies: what they do and don’t cover

Conveyancers often suggest an indemnity policy instead, and yours will explain its terms. In general, the law firm Trethowans noted in June 2024 that these policies only deal with enforcement action by the local authority and “do not address the question whether the offending works were carried out to a high build standard”. The HomeOwners Alliance warns that a policy becomes invalid if anyone approaches the council about the missing certificate, which is why you ask your conveyancer before calling building control.

For electrics, that gap matters: a policy doesn’t tell you whether the wiring is safe. An EICR does.

Good to know An indemnity policy covers the council’s enforcement action, not the safety of the wiring itself.

Selling a rented home: the landlord’s separate duty

If the property is let, or your buyer plans to let it, a separate law applies. Under the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector and Social Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, a landlord must have the installation inspected and tested by a qualified person before a tenancy starts, then at intervals of no more than five years, or sooner if the last report says so.

A buyer purchasing with a tenant in place, or planning to let, will want to check there’s a current EICR that was given to the tenant, the Law Society’s notes say. Our guide to how long an EICR lasts for landlords and homeowners covers the intervals in detail.

Before you put your home on the market

Four things to do before a buyer’s conveyancer starts asking:

• Gather every EIC, Minor Works and Building Regulations certificate since 2005.
• Note the electrical jobs you know about, especially new circuits, a consumer unit change or bathroom work.
• Look for a label at the consumer unit showing when the electrics were last inspected, without taking any covers off.
• If there’s no report from the last ten years, consider an EICR before listing.

Getting your electrical paperwork ready to sell

We work from our base on Airfield Way, offering electrical inspections for Christchurch homes and periodic inspections across Dorset. Getting ready to sell? Ask us for a free quote and we’ll explain what an inspection of your wiring would cover. No electrical certificate is legally required when selling a house you live in, but the right paperwork and a recent report leave a buyer with fewer questions.