Holiday Home Legal Compliance
Electrical
• Anyone who lets residential accommodation (such as houses, flats and bedsits, holiday homes, caravans and boats) as a business activity is required by law to ensure the electrical equipment they supply as part of the tenancy is safe.
• The Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994 requires that all mains electrical equipment (cookers, washing machines, kettles, etc..), new or second-hand, supplied with the accommodation must be safe. Landlords therefore need to regularly maintain the electrical equipment they supply to ensure it is safe.
• We are equipped and qualified to carry out Portable Appliance Testing, (PAT) which is a legal requirement. Every item that has passed a PAT will be compliant for the next two years from date of test.
For all new properties that we become caretakers of, we firmly recommend that we carry out an electrical inspection of the property, unless the client specifies otherwise.
We also survey the condition of the existing wiring and if it is an older property, we would check to see if the property has been rewired. The consumer unit should be inspected to check the presence of RCBs and MCBs or old fuse wire.
Plumbing and heating
We also recommend to all properties of which we care take, that on commencement of contract, unless otherwise requested by the client not to do so, that we carry out an inspection of the heating and plumbing system.
Gas and oil inspections must be undertaken by a registered heating and plumbing engineer, who in essence will check the presence of a meter, the number of appliances attached to the pipe work, isolation valves and the pipe work. Our engineer will undertake two tests; the first would be to detect any leaks from the system; the second to check the flues from boilers and gas fires to check that they are functioning correctly as carbon monoxide discharge into occupied areas can kill.
The water services will be checked for cross bonding beneath sinks and taps and for general leaks throughout the property. The existence of old lead pipes will be noted, due to the potential health risks of lead poisoning.
The landlord certificate is issued annually on a successful completion test of the system and will be carried out on the anniversary date of the last test, so as to avoid periods of non-compliance.