Victorian conversions and your EICR
More than half of Haringey's homes (54%) were built before 1919, and almost two in three are flats or maisonettes. Many of those flats are floors of Victorian and Edwardian houses, divided up long after they were built.
Conversions raise particular questions at an EICR. Each flat should have its own meter, supply and consumer unit (the fuse board), but wiring from before the conversion can still be in use, and cables serving one flat sometimes pass through another. Kitchens and bathrooms have often moved, too. The inspector checks main bonding — the earth connections to incoming gas and water pipes — and the extra protection needed around baths and showers. Every circuit is tested, and the report records any part of the installation that couldn't be reached.
Whole houses have their own patterns. A Victorian terrace may have been rewired in stages, leaving a mix of old and new cables, while loft conversions and rear extensions add circuits to an existing board. Haringey also has post-war blocks and newer developments, and about one home in eight dates from 2000 or later. In those flats your own installation is often newer, while the wiring in shared areas belongs to the freeholder.
Letting a property in Haringey
In Haringey, licensing often decides what paperwork you need before a tenant moves in. Selective licensing covers 14 wards, including Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters, Harringay, Noel Park and Bounds Green, and its conditions require you to give tenants a copy of the current electrical safety certificate. Shared homes need an HMO licence anywhere in the borough, and the council can refuse an HMO application that arrives without an electrical safety certificate.
Behind the licences is the national duty in the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020: a qualified person must inspect and test the installation at least every five years. The report goes to existing tenants within 28 days of the inspection, to new tenants before they move in, and to the council within seven days of a request. Anything coded C1 or C2 — and any further investigation the report asks for — must be fixed within 28 days, or sooner if the report says so. Fines reach £40,000.
Booking a flat in a converted house
Tell us which meter cupboard serves your flat and who holds the key to the shared hall. Prices for a studio to two-bedroom flat with one consumer unit start from £90 inc VAT, whichever floor of the house it is on.
