Visit Website →
← Back to blog

Keep Your HMO Licence: Electrical Checks, EICRs and 28 Day Repairs

September 3, 2026
Keep Your HMO Licence: Electrical Checks, EICRs and 28 Day Repairs

The fixed electrical installation in every HMO must be inspected and tested by a qualified person at least once every five years, with the resulting EICR supplied to tenants and the council within strict statutory windows. If that report flags faults, remedial work must be finished within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so. Book the check now if your last one is due, and if remedial works are outstanding, close them out before a licensing inspector asks why they aren't.

TL;DR:

  • Book an electrical inspection at least every five years, and complete any urgent remedial work within 28 days to maintain compliance.
  • Ensure the inspection covers fixed wiring, socket outlets, light fittings, consumer units, and permanent equipment, excluding tenant-plugged devices.
  • Use registered qualified electricians with appropriate insurance, and verify their scheme registration, references, and typical turnaround times before hiring.
  • Supply a copy of the EICR within 28 days to tenants and the local authority and keep digital records to streamline compliance and inspections.
  • Treat electrical safety as ongoing risk management by acting promptly on tenant reports and maintaining a well-organized, proactive compliance workflow.

Table of Contents

What HMO electrical checks actually cover

An EICR is not a walk-through with a torch. It is a formal inspection against BS 7671, the Wiring Regulations that set the technical benchmark every fixed installation in England and Wales is judged against. A competent inspector tests the parts of the building's electrical system that don't move house when a tenant does.

That means the check covers:

  • The fixed wiring running through walls, floors, and voids across every let room and communal area.
  • Socket outlets and light fittings, including those in kitchens, bathrooms, and shared hallways.
  • The consumer unit (fuse board), checking circuit protection, earthing, and bonding.
  • Any permanently connected equipment, such as extractor fans, immersion heaters, or emergency lighting in larger licensed HMOs.
  • Special installations where fitted, including solar PV connections or electric vehicle charging points.

What it does not cover is anything the tenant plugs in themselves. A tenant's kettle, laptop charger, or games console sits outside the scope of the electrical safety checks for HMO fixed-wiring inspection entirely. That distinction catches out a lot of landlords who assume a satisfactory EICR means every appliance in the building has been vetted.

Where you supply items yourself, such as cookers, washing machines, or communal fridge freezers, you carry a separate duty to keep those safe. Social landlords, in particular, must check equipment they provide at least every five years too, often recorded through an in-service inspection and testing (ISIT) log. Keep that log separate from your EICR file. A licensing officer will ask about both, and conflating them under one certificate is a common paperwork error.

There's a useful shortcut worth knowing. If you've had a full rewire, or a fresh Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) issued following major works, that document can reset your five-year clock rather than forcing you to commission a fresh EICR immediately afterwards. It's the same underlying standard, just a different certificate type marking the same starting point. What matters is that the property never runs beyond five years without a qualified person confirming the installation is still sound, and that separate obligation for tenant safety versus landlord-supplied equipment stays clearly documented in your files.

Who counts as a "qualified person" for HMO electrical inspections

The regulations use the phrase "qualified person" deliberately, rather than naming a specific scheme. In practice, that means someone with the training, qualifications, and experience to inspect and test electrical installations safely and competently, usually evidenced through registration with a recognised competent person scheme such as NICEIC, NAPIT, or ELECSA.

Before you book anyone, ask to see:

  • Their scheme registration certificate and the trade category it covers (installation, inspection and testing, or both).
  • A sample EICR from a previous job, so you can judge how thoroughly they document observations and codes.
  • Evidence of public liability insurance, ideally £2 million or above for HMO work given the higher occupant density.
  • References from other landlords or managing agents, particularly anyone managing licensed HMOs rather than single lets.
  • Their typical turnaround for remedial works once a fault is identified, since a slow electrician turns a 28 day deadline into a real problem.

Red flags are easy to spot once you know what to look for. Anyone reluctant to name their scheme, vague about insurance cover, or quoting significantly below the market rate for a full HMO inspection is worth avoiding. A certified electrician working across your rental portfolio should be able to answer scheme, insurance, and turnaround questions without hesitation on a first call.

Pro Tip: Keep a one-page "inspector competence" record in each property file, noting the scheme registration number, insurance renewal date, and the date you last verified both. It takes five minutes and it's the first thing a licensing officer or a solicitor will ask for if a dispute ever arises.

Deadlines for supplying and storing your EICR

The Electrical Safety Standards Regulations 2020 set out three separate delivery windows, and mixing them up is one of the most common compliance slips landlords make.

  1. Existing tenants must receive a copy of the EICR within 28 days of the inspection.
  2. The local housing authority must receive a copy within 7 days of a written request, whether that request lands mid tenancy or during a licensing renewal.
  3. New or prospective tenants must see the report before they move in, or within 28 days if a request comes after occupation has already started.

That 7-day window is the one that catches landlords out. A licensing officer doesn't need to give notice, and if your certificate is sitting on a hard drive nobody can access while you're away, you've already missed it.

Retention is simpler than it sounds: keep the current EICR until the next one is due, and hand the outgoing report to whichever qualified person carries out the following inspection. That gives them a baseline to compare against, which speeds up their assessment of any recurring faults.

Three habits keep this workflow reliable across a portfolio of any size. Store certificates digitally, tagged by property address and expiry date, rather than relying on paper files split across sites. Build a standard tenant handover pack that includes the EICR alongside gas safety and EPC documents, so nothing gets forgotten at move-in. And keep a template response ready for local authority requests, since a same-day reply to a 7-day deadline leaves no room for a lost email.

Roughly 44% of English private rented homes are estimated to contain at least one electrical safety hazard, which is precisely why the five-year interval and the paper trail behind it exist. It's not paperwork for its own sake.

What happens when your EICR flags a fault

Most EICRs come back with at least one observation coded C1, C2, or C3. A C1 means danger present, requiring immediate action. A C2 means potentially dangerous, requiring urgent remedial work. A C3 is advisory, meaning improvement is recommended but not mandatory. It's the C1 and C2 codes that trigger your legal deadline.

Once a report specifies remedial or further investigative work, you must have it completed by a qualified person within 28 days, or sooner if the report names an earlier date. That's not a target, it's the statutory maximum.

Acceptable evidence that the work has actually happened includes:

  • A follow-up EICR confirming the installation is now satisfactory.
  • An Electrical Installation Certificate (EIC) covering new work carried out.
  • A Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate (MEIWC) for smaller fixes, such as replacing a consumer unit component.
  • A written confirmation from the qualified person who carried out the repair, referencing the original report's observation numbers.

Where a C1 fault appears, don't wait for the 28-day window to run. Notify affected tenants immediately and arrange urgent remedial action, since a danger-present code implies genuine risk to occupants rather than a compliance formality. For anything less urgent, keep both the original EICR and the remedial confirmation together in the property file. That pairing is exactly what a licensing officer will ask to see, and turning up with only the remedial invoice and no reference back to the original fault code tends to invite more questions, not fewer.

HMO licensing conditions and what enforcement actually looks like

The 2020 Electrical Safety Regulations didn't replace existing HMO duties, they layered on top of them. The Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 already required HMO managers to keep fixed electrical installations inspected and tested at intervals not exceeding five years, and to supply the certificate to the local authority within 7 days of a written request. Where a local authority attaches Schedule 4 style conditions to a licence, expect electrical compliance evidence to be named explicitly as a renewal requirement, not just a background duty.

Enforcement runs through several routes. Councils can arrange remedial works themselves and recover the reasonable cost from you if you fail to act, issue a financial penalty of up to £30,000, or, in the most serious cases, treat non-compliance as grounds to revoke or refuse an HMO licence. You can appeal a penalty to the First-tier Tribunal, but that route costs time and legal fees a same-day remedial job would have avoided entirely.

Local authorities generally act when a complaint is raised, a licence renewal is due, or a routine inspection turns up an expired or missing EICR. What they look for on a file check tends to be consistent:

  • The current EICR, dated within the last five years, with no outstanding C1 or C2 observations left unresolved.
  • Remedial confirmation certificates cross-referenced to the original report.
  • Evidence the inspector held appropriate scheme registration at the time of the check.
  • A record showing tenants received their copy within the 28-day window.

If works genuinely can't finish inside 28 days, such as when a full rewire is needed across a large shared house, document the reason and keep the council informed. Councils generally respond better to landlords who show demonstrable progress than to silence followed by a licensing review, and Oxford City Council's HMO guidance is a useful example of how one authority sets out its expectations plainly for landlords managing shared housing locally.

Running electrical compliance across a real HMO portfolio

Compliance stops being stressful the moment it stops being reactive. A repeatable workflow across a portfolio looks roughly like this:

  1. Schedule inspections against a rolling five-year calendar, reviewed quarterly so nothing slips past its due date unnoticed.
  2. Notify tenants in advance of the inspection date, giving reasonable access notice and confirming which rooms the electrician needs to reach.
  3. Book remedial works immediately if the EICR flags a fault, rather than waiting for a second contractor conversation once the report lands.
  4. File the certificate and any remedial confirmation together, tagged by property, so a single search retrieves everything a licensing officer might request.

Preparing the property properly speeds up the visit and often reduces the remedial bill. Clear access to the consumer unit, label circuits where you can, and flag any DIY electrical work tenants may have mentioned, since that's exactly where inspectors tend to find undocumented faults.

Your compliance pack, per property, should hold the current EICR, any remedial confirmation certificates, ISIT records for landlord-supplied appliances, and a log of every access appointment with dates and who attended. That last item matters more than landlords expect. It's your evidence trail if a tenant later disputes access or a fault's timeline.

777pcm's remedial works playbook sets out templates for exactly this kind of tracking, built from managing electrical compliance across live rental portfolios. In-house certified electricians and a single compliance portal mean a flagged fault moves straight to a booked remedial visit, rather than sitting in an inbox waiting for a subcontractor to become available.

Pro Tip: Set your EICR renewal reminder for 4 years and 9 months after the last inspection date, not five years flat. That three-month buffer covers scheduling delays, access issues, and any remedial follow-up without ever risking a lapsed certificate.

Running electrical compliance across a real HMO portfolio — overview diagram

Why the five-year certificate isn't the finish line

Treating the EICR as a box ticked every five years misses the point of the regulation entirely; following facility maintenance essentials best practices ensures ongoing compliance and operational efficiency. Electrical risk doesn't wait politely for your renewal date. A tenant's faulty extension lead, water ingress after a leak, or DIY wiring nobody reported can all create danger long before the next scheduled inspection.

The landlords who avoid enforcement trouble treat electrical safety as ongoing risk management, not an annual paperwork exercise. That means acting on tenant reports of flickering lights or tripped circuits immediately, not filing them for the next visit. It also tends to pay off commercially: HMOs with a visible, well-documented safety record retain tenants longer and attract fewer disputes at renewal, because occupants notice when a landlord responds properly to a fault. Building the workflow described above, once, saves repeating the scramble every five years.

— Mike

How 777pcm keeps your HMO electrical compliance on schedule

777pcm exists to take the deadline pressure off your desk. Rather than juggling a separate electrician for every property and chasing paperwork across a portfolio, you get one point of contact coordinating EICR bookings, remedial works, and certificate storage through a single compliance portal.

777pcm

In-house certified electricians mean a flagged C2 observation doesn't sit waiting for a subcontractor's availability. It moves straight to a booked remedial visit, with the confirmation certificate filed against the original report automatically, so your file is ready the moment a local authority sends a 7-day written request. That consolidated record is what turns a licensing inspection from a scramble into a five-minute file check.

If your next EICR is due, or you're not entirely sure when your last one expires across a mixed portfolio, request a compliance audit through 777pcm and get every property's electrical status mapped against its statutory renewal date.

Sources