The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 apply to every privately rented home in Hertfordshire, for new tenancies from 1 July 2020 and existing tenancies from 1 April 2021. The fixed installation must be inspected and tested at intervals of no more than five years.

Hertfordshire's rental market is a commuter market: Thameslink through St Albans and Harpenden, the Great Northern through Stevenage, Hitchin and Welwyn, the West Coast line through Watford and Hemel Hempstead, the Metropolitan line through Rickmansworth and Croxley. Tenancies here are long enough for the five-year interval to be missed and short enough for new tenants to arrive often, so both deadlines matter: five years from the inspection date regardless of how long the tenant has been in, and a copy of the report to a new tenant before they move in.

A copy goes to existing tenants within 28 days of the inspection, to a prospective tenant within 28 days of them asking, and to the council within seven days of a request; the penalty for a breach is up to £30,000. A shorter retest interval written into the report overrides the five years, and inspectors commonly write one on unaltered 1950s and 1960s new-town installations.

Watford and Welwyn Hatfield are the Hertfordshire authorities where licensing beyond the mandatory HMO scheme has mattered most: Watford for its large shared-house market, Hatfield for student lets around the University of Hertfordshire. Additional licensing for smaller shared houses has been used in parts of both. Elsewhere in the county the mandatory HMO licence, for a house shared by five or more people from two or more households, is the usual duty.

A satisfactory EICR is normally a condition of any licence that applies, and councils expect it to be produced on request rather than after a search.

Schemes are renewed, redrawn and allowed to lapse, so confirm the current position with the council for your postcode before relying on it. In Hatfield the timing that works for a student house is the summer vacation, so that any remedial work is done before the September intake.

We cover the whole county. The inspecting electrician needs access to the consumer unit, to the meter position and to every room. More Hertfordshire lets are handled through managing agents than almost anywhere else, so telling us which agent holds the keys when you book removes most of the usual delay.

Tenants need advance notice, because the supply is off for parts of the testing. A typical two or three bedroom house takes between two and four hours; a new-town maisonette is usually quicker, unless the board has been boxed in; an extended period house in St Albans or Harpenden takes longer.

Hatfield student houses are best inspected in the vacation, and in any shared house every occupant needs to know the power will be off.