EICR Testing and Certificates in Kensington
EICR testing, remedial works and landlord certificates for landlords, letting agents, housing providers and homeowners across Kensington — council housing and housing-association estates, including Octavia.
- Codes explained
- Price before attendance
- Qualified inspectors
- Full report and schedules
Serving Kensington, Earls Court, Chelsea, North Kensington, South Kensington and surrounding areas.
EICR prices
From £106.80 inc VAT (£89 + VAT)
| Property | Price inc VAT | Ex VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Studio flat | £106.80 | £89 |
| 1-bedroom property | £132 | £110 |
| 2-bedroom property | £192 | £160 |
| 3-bedroom property | £240 | £200 |
| 4-bedroom property | £300 | £250 |
| 5-bedroom property | £360 | £300 |
| Commercial EICR | from £288 | from £240 |
| HMO or multiple consumer units | Quoted individually | |
- Full Electrical Installation Condition Report with observation and test schedules
- C1, C2, C3 and FI observations explained in plain English
- Written remedial quote if the report is unsatisfactory — remedial work priced separately
Residential prices are based on property size and assume one consumer unit, a normal circuit count and reasonable access. Converted properties, HMOs, multiple boards and unusually complex installations are quoted individually.
The price is confirmed before attendance from the property details supplied. If the installation materially differs - additional consumer units, or an undeclared commercial area - we explain and agree any change in scope before testing continues.
Property licensing in Kensington and Chelsea
- Additional HMO licensingborough-wide — smaller HMOs outside the mandatory scheme — since June 2023, running to May 2028
- Mandatory HMO licensingqualifying larger HMOs — applies nationally, not a local scheme
Licence applications and renewals ask for current electrical safety documentation. Check your property's exact status and any exemptions with the council before applying.
A burning smell coming off a plug socket, or a fuse box that smells hot when you walk past - don't test your luck with that one; our emergency electrician makes it safe before it turns into damage you can see. When an EICR comes back unsatisfactory and the agent's asking what happens next, eicr remedial work is the answer: faults fixed, circuits re-tested, certification issued. Need a landlord electrical certificate for a let in Earls Court or South Kensington before the tenancy signs? We handle the inspection and hand over an eicr certificate with the codes actually explained. And flickering lights or bulbs that blow every few weeks tend to mean connections or cabling on the way out - rewiring puts that right permanently. You already suspected something needed looking at, or you wouldn't be reading this; trust that instinct while it's still a small job.
EICR Testing and Electrical Services in Kensington
Most people land here with a date already fixed - a tenancy starting, a report about to run out, a solicitor asking what the wiring has actually been checked against. Choosing an eicr electrician Kensington agents can put straight onto a compliance file shouldn't take a week of research, so here's the whole process: an engineer inspects and tests the installation, the report comes back with every observation explained in plain terms, and anything needing attention is priced in a written quote before a tool comes out of the van.
That's how it runs for private landlords, letting and managing agents, housing associations and councils - and just the same for homeowners, HMO landlords, people mid-sale, and the small businesses along the shopping streets.
One flat above a shop gets the same engineer, the same test schedule and the same paperwork as a 200-home portfolio programme. Size doesn't change the standard. Same-day appointments are available, and the line is answered 24/7 if your dates are tight.
An electrical installation condition report is a proper test of the fixed wiring - consumer unit, circuits, earthing, bonding - measured with instruments, not judged by eye. What comes back is either a satisfactory result or a schedule of coded observations, and landlords usually know that document as the electrical safety certificate Kensington letting agents ask to see before check-in. Only C1, C2 and FI findings make a report unsatisfactory. A C3 is advisory and fails nothing on its own, whatever you may have been told. The stucco terraces around Earls Court and South Kensington have been split into flats, knocked about and re-let for a century, and the wiring carries every one of those decisions. Arrange EICR testing while you still have a choice of dates.
EICR Remedial Works
An unsatisfactory outcome isn't a disaster. It's a to-do list with priorities already attached. C1 means danger is present and it gets made safe on the spot; C2 covers what's potentially dangerous - missing earths at accessories, undersized main bonding to the incoming water and gas services, amateur alterations plastered over where nobody could inspect them; FI means the inspector couldn't see enough to judge it. We price the schedule line by line so it's obvious what's required and what's optional. When the work's done you get written confirmation plus the certification that fits it - an Electrical Installation Certificate, a Minor Works certificate, or a fresh EICR where that's been agreed. Perished rubber insulation still turns up in this stock, and patching that is money wasted. Remedial work never gets cheaper while a file sits open.
Landlord Electrical Safety Packages
Landlords and agents rarely need one thing in isolation. The package pulls the EICR, PAT testing on appliances supplied with the let, and smoke and carbon monoxide alarm checks into a single booking with one set of dated paperwork for the tenancy file. One visit, one invoice, one folder to hand over at check-in. A landlord electrical safety package earns its keep wherever tenancies turn over often enough that chasing three separate contractors stops being worth anyone's time.
Related electrical work in Kensington
- Consumer unit upgrades for boards that can't take the RCD protection modern circuits and bathroom loads expect.
- Full and part rewires where cabling is perished rather than merely dated, and patching it solves nothing.
- 24/7 emergency electricians for burning smells, dead supplies and breakers that refuse to stay in.
- PAT testing on appliances you supply - furnished flats, offices, salons and shop floors.
A report that expires mid-tenancy costs far more to sort in a hurry than one booked while the diary is still yours.
Electrical Problems We Fix in Kensington
Council EICR Demands and Penalty Notices
Council asking for your EICR? That letter has a 7-day limit on producing the report, and penalty exposure runs per breach - so if the report doesn't exist, has expired, or its remedials were never evidenced within the 28 days - or sooner where the report specifies -, this is an emergency with a legal clock on it. The council can even arrange urgent works itself and recover the cost. Get council enforcement over an EICR handled before the deadline writes your options for you.
Total Power Loss in One Property
No electricity in the whole house while next door's fine? Usually the main switch or RCD has tripped on an internal fault - though it can be supply-side, a network outage or blown DNO cutout fuse. With the network excluded, a system that refuses to stay on is carrying a live fault, and fridges, freezers and heating are counting the hours. Treat a whole-property power failure as an emergency.
Dead Sockets on One Circuit
Half the sockets not working, or no power upstairs while the lights run fine? That's typically one circuit down - a tripped MCB, a failed connection mid-circuit, or a broken leg on a ring final leaving part of it dead or quietly overloaded. Failed connections are where arcing and heat damage begin, so it's a same-day job. Booking an electrician for partial power loss today keeps it a repair, not a rebuild.
Old Fuse Boxes and Fuse-Wire Boards
Old fuse box - is it safe? If it takes fuse wire and has no trip switches, the installation predates RCD requirements, and the board is often just the visible tip of similarly dated wiring behind it. Years of wrong-gauge fuse wire can cook carriers and terminals too. Plannable - unless the property's rented, being sold, or blowing fuses, in which case move it up the list. An assessment of an old fuse box without RCD protection tells you, before the electrical installation condition report Kensington landlords need makes the decision for you.
Weighing Up Who Should Test Your Wiring?
Take the time - but measure every firm against the same yardstick: written price up front, the c1 c2 c3 codes explained in plain English, and remedials itemised line by line. If a failed report is already sitting in your inbox, send it across for a remedial quote, or book an electrician while the fault behind it is still a small one.
Electrical Safety Across Kensington's Housing Stock
Council and ALMO Housing
The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea's Housing Management arm is a 7,000-home council landlord now working under the social-sector electrical safety duty - live law since 1 November 2025, covering new social tenancies from 1 December 2025 and all existing tenancies from 1 May 2026, with first inspections due by 1 November 2026. That means five-yearly EICRs, PAT testing of supplied appliances, 28-day remedial deadlines and penalties up to £40,000 per breach under SI 2025/1043 - alongside communal fixed-installation duties and an active upgrade programme that includes rewiring. One naming point matters to anyone quoting or tendering here: electrical testing and remedial contracts on former KCTMO estates are commissioned by RBKC Housing Management - or the Lancaster West Neighbourhood Team for that estate - not the TMO.
Housing-Association Stock
Octavia's street properties and small blocks are the hardest social stock to programme: dispersed period buildings with individual supplies, which forces address-by-address EICR scheduling rather than tidy estate-scale runs. Women's Pioneer Housing sits at the other end - a small specialist landlord whose sheltered-type schemes carry the same five-yearly EICR and PAT obligations, the profile of provider that buys testing as a managed programme. Either way, the duty is identical; only the logistics change, and the logistics are where dispersed stock quietly falls behind.
Period Conversions and Older Wiring
Away from social landlords, W8's tall stucco terraces and mansion flats hold wiring from every decade since the war, often several of them in one building. That's where a landlord eicr Kensington agents commission before a tenancy earns its keep - finding the undeclared alterations and absent RCD protection while there's still time to fix them on your own schedule.
Kensington's non-domestic estate is just as demanding. Imperial College's South Kensington campus pairs laboratory-grade installations with 722 marketed rooms across its Prince's Gardens halls - landlord-style periodic inspection at student-accommodation intensity. The Exhibition Road museums quarter and Kensington Palace, run by Historic Royal Palaces, put Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 duties inside listed fabric, and the 833-bedroom Copthorne Tara Hotel anchors a hotel cluster where fixed-wire testing sits at the centre of insurer and fire-risk-assessment demands. Different buildings, same truth: the inspection cycle is statutory, and being early is the only version of it that's cheap.
Electrical Safety Services Across Kensington and Nearby Areas
Booking an eicr Kensington wide is the same phone call wherever you sit on the map - our electricians cover the borough, its neighbours Chelsea and North Kensington, and the rest of Central London beyond them.
Earls Court (SW5)
SW5 runs on lets: dense terraces carved into flats and studios, short lease chains, fast tenant turnover. Every changeover is a natural moment to check the certificate's still current, and HMO landlords here carry licence conditions on top. With that much churn, the landlord who diarises renewals stays comfortable - the one who doesn't meets the council first.
South Kensington
Around SW7's museum streets, grand conversions and serviced flats mix with institutional buildings, and both sides need periodic testing - dwellings on the landlord cycle, commercial premises under the Electricity at Work Regulations. Mixed-use freeholders often discover they hold two duties at once. An inspection that maps who owns which circuit settles years of ambiguity in one visit.
Holland Park
Holland Park's villas in W11 and W14 are some of the largest single dwellings we test - deep basements, staff flats, garden studios, and additions wired in every era since the house was built. Owner-occupiers have no legal EICR duty, but ten unexamined years in a house this size is a genuine unknown. Before the next big refurbishment is the clever time to test, while walls are already open.
Questions About EICRs and Electrical Work in Kensington
What determines what my EICR will cost?
Circuit count, age and access - that's most of it. A purpose-built flat with a modern board takes less time than a four-storey conversion with three eras of wiring and a cupboard nobody's opened since the eighties. Every job gets a written price before it's booked, so there's no meter running on the day. A firm figure is free to ask for - and it makes comparing firms honest.
How long does the visit take, and is the power off?
Expect roughly two hours for a typical flat, longer for large houses and HMOs - eicr testing in Kensington conversion stock means dead-testing each circuit properly, so the power goes off in stages. We'll tell you the order so tenants or staff can plan around it. It's one arranged visit, and then the certificate holds for up to five years.
We've only got one flat - is that too small a job?
Not remotely. Single flats, one shop, a private homeowner wanting old wiring checked - that's half our week. A one-property inspection is handled with the same rigour as a 200-home portfolio programme, same engineer standard, same report format. Small jobs postponed have a habit of returning as urgent ones, so it's worth the slot now.
What documents do I get, and who needs to see them?
You receive the full electrical installation condition report - coded observations (C1, C2, C3, FI), test schedules, and a plain-English explanation of what's actually wrong and what's merely recommended. Private landlords must give it to tenants and produce it for the council within 7 days of a request; social landlords now carry their own duty under the 2025 Standards. If it's unsatisfactory, a written remedial quote comes with it. Filed properly, it's the cheapest insurance paperwork you own.
Who's responsible when a rented flat fails its EICR?
The landlord - the 2020 Regulations put the duty, the 28-day remedial window and the penalty exposure (up to £40,000 per breach since 1 November 2025) on whoever grants the tenancy, not the agent or tenant. We handle the fix end to end: priced from the codes, completed, re-tested, evidenced in writing. The duty can't be delegated, but the work can - and the sooner it is, the less the deadline dictates.
Put a Date on Your EICR
Nothing left to weigh up - request a written quote for your electrical work and choose the day that suits the property. One conversion flat or a whole managed portfolio, the process is identical: inspection, report, codes explained, remedials priced. The line's answered 24/7, and a 5 year electrical check booked today is a renewal you won't be chased for tomorrow.
Related electrical work
Other work we take on in Kensington — each one has its own page.
- Consumer unit and fuse box upgrades — when an EICR flags an old board with no RCD protection.
- Rewiring and part rewires — when circuits are past their service life rather than repairable.
- 24/7 emergency electricians — when something is happening right now — the line is answered 24/7.
- PAT testing — for appliances in let and commercial properties.