There are a number of health and safety regulations that a landlord has to comply with, and many of these have changed over the years. A recent regulation that landlords need to be aware of, The Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, which began on the 8th of December 2016. The new regulation only applies to electrical equipment which was placed on to the market on or after this date with electrical equipment placed on the market prior to the 8th of December 2016 being governed by the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 1994.
Of course, given that most people are unaware of when a product was placed on to the marketplace, it seems as though people are taking the purchase date of electrical equipment as being the relevant date. This means that landlords who have bought electrical equipment on after the 8th of December 2016 need to ensure that that they comply with the new regulations.
The definition of electrical equipment has been set at:
Equipment which is designed to be used with a voltage rating of between 50 and 1,000 Volts for mains electricity (alternating current) and been 75 and 1,500V for battery powered (direct current) equipment. This means that standard housing equipment like TVs, lamps, vacuum cleaners, kettles, washing machines, fridges and cookers all need to apply with the new regulations.
In order to comply with the new regulations, electrical equipment must:
- Be labelled in the correct manner by the manufacture
- Have a type, batch, serial number of some identifier which ensures it can be clearly identified
- Contain information which states who the importer is
- Have a postal address where the manufacturer of the equipment can be contacted
It is also important that the landlord is able to provide the genuine user manual for the product. It used to be that many landlords deemed it “best practice” to provide user instructions for devices and appliances around the rented accommodation. This is a good idea because it helps tenants get up to speed with how to use important devices but the new regulations means that the authentic user manuals must be provided, even if the landlord offers handwritten instructions.
It is not as if these changes should be too difficult to comply with and the fact that they don’t apply to electrical equipment that was purchased before the start date is of benefit. There is likely to be old equipment with landlords having lost or mislaid instruction guides. It is also likely that old equipment will not be able to provide the necessary information regarding postal address of the manufacturer or clearly defined identifying material. For the moment, this is not an issue, the only thing that matters is landlords ensuring that all new electrical equipment complies with the process.
This regulation should help to improve safety around the home and increase the confidence of tenants in using electrical equipment around the home, which is good news for all parties.