Domestic Electrical Work & The Law
In 2005 the Government brought in a new electrical law for the safety of the public, making certain types of electrical work in the home illegal. All notifiable electrical work in a domestic property, must be informed to your building control officer of your local council, or be completed by a registered part P installer or an employee of that company. The registered electrician does not need to be NICEIC registered, they can be anyone from a part P registered organisation, such as NAPIT, BRE, ELECSA, etc.
Part P also states that an electrician who is not registered as a part P approved installer, cannot undertake notifiable electrical work unless they are an employee of a registered company. An unregistered electrician is not allowed to complete electrical work even in their own home, unless they inform their local building control officer. So if you employ an electrician to work for you, always check to see if they are part P registered. If they are not, the work might not be done correctly, you might not receive an electrical certificate, and you could be fined £5000 because you will be braking the law.
You can undertake notifiable electrical work yourself or employ an unregistered electrician as long as, you inform building control of the work before it is started. Building control will inspect the work before and after completion, and have the work tested by a part P registered person on completion. If the work meets all regulations and has been installed correctly, you will receive an electrical certificate. You will need to pay building control a fee for their service, but it is far cheaper to use a registered installer to notify building control.
It is the person who is requesting the work, Home owner, tenant, landlord, or estate agent, responsibility to only use a part P registered electrician or notify building control of notifiable work. Should you not conform to this law, you will be deemed as braking the law and could be fined. If the work is found to be unsafe or installed incorrectly, it could be taken out and redone at your expense, so always employ a part P registered electrician.
Its cheaper to use a part P registered electrician
to notify building control, than you to notify them