An Electrical Installation Condition Report for the communal electrics. Every five years. Boring but compulsory. Your insurer checks before paying any fire claim. This page walks you from quote to certificate.
The EICR checks your building's communal electrics: lights in the hallway and stairs, the distribution board, supply to the lift and fire alarm, door entry, external lighting. It does not cover individual flats. It does not involve building works. An accredited inspector spends a few hours on site and produces a written report with a pass, a fail, or a list of codes.
Depends on block size, communal scope, and whether there's a lift. Small blocks under £400. Blocks with lifts or over 30 units typically £800 to £2,000. See calculator below.
Visual inspection plus dead and live testing of a sample of circuits. No flats entered. Residents are not disturbed except for a brief power interruption while the DB is tested.
The standard interval for residential common parts under BS 7671. Your previous EICR may specify an earlier date based on condition. Renew before the certificate expires, not after.
The report follows the EICR format prescribed by BS 7671:2018+A2:2022 (the 18th Edition Wiring Regulations). Any issues found are graded: C1 (danger present, immediate action), C2 (potentially dangerous, urgent remedial action), C3 (improvement recommended, not urgent), FI (further investigation required). A satisfactory EICR has no open C1 or C2 codes. If yours has them, you have not passed until they are remedied and reinspected.
Pick the one that matches you. Each has a different fix and a different timeline.
Most likely: one exists and is filed with the managing agent, but has not been shared with current directors. Quick to resolve.
What to do. Ask your managing agent or freeholder for the current EICR, the contractor's accreditation details, and the date it was carried out. Give them 14 days. If they cannot produce it, assume State 2 and commission a new one.
The inspection cycle has lapsed. Your duty is active and ongoing. Insurer notification may be required.
What to do. Commission a new EICR using the price calculator below, the supplier checklist to pick an accredited contractor, and the draft email to get three quotes. Expect 1 to 2 weeks to receive quotes, 1 to 3 weeks from instruction to written report.
The report is not a pass until C1 and C2 codes are fixed and reinspected. Ignoring these exposes directors personally and voids fire insurance cover.
Enter your building's basics and we will estimate a realistic range. If you came from the audit, some of this is already filled in.
All figures are indicative ranges based on published rates checked April–May 2026. Always compare three written quotes for your specific building. Last reviewed for accuracy on the page legal-check date shown above.
You do not need to understand BS 7671 to instruct a good inspection. You need to know which accreditations to insist on, and which six questions to ask before you book.
Written to meet the quality checklist above. It asks for exactly what a proper EICR quote should contain. If a contractor pushes back, you have your answer about their fit.
The calculator above updates the unit count, scope, lift line, and installation-age line automatically. Everything in the amber slots is for you to fill in before sending. Send to at least three contractors so you have a market check on the price.
The EICR is a legitimate service charge expense. Smaller blocks stay below the Section 20 threshold; medium and larger blocks, especially those with lifts, often cross it. Check before you instruct.
Include the EICR in your annual service charge budget and recover through the usual quarterly or half-yearly demands. Attach the invoice to the year-end accounts. No Section 20 consultation required if per-leaseholder cost is under £250.
If the reserve fund is empty and you need to commission urgently, issue a one-off demand specifically for the EICR and any remediation quoted. The demand must include the Section 21B summary of rights and obligations, or it is not legally enforceable. Leaseholders generally accept safety-led demands without pushback when the reason is statutory.
Section 20 consultation is required when the cost to any single leaseholder exceeds £250. For mid-size and larger blocks with lifts or complex communal scope, the EICR plus remediation can easily push each leaseholder over this threshold. If it does, you must run the long consultation (two notices, 30 days each) before instructing. Miss it, and you can only recover £250 per leaseholder. See the Section 20 process for the full flow and the draft notices.
Keep the signed EICR, the contractor's registration details, the invoices for inspection and any remediation, and the reinspection certificate if C1/C2 codes were remedied. Notify your buildings insurer when you have a new clean certificate. Set a calendar reminder for the next inspection date.
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"Building Trust is built by Adam Street, a director of Hafer Road Flats Limited (16-flat SoF in Battersea). Every page reflects what we do at HRFL or wish we had been told sooner. The fee benchmarks calibrate against real building data."
Read the Hafer Road case study →BLOCK-iQ tracks every certificate with an expiry date, flags renewal 90 days out, and pre-populates the quote-request email with your building's data. No more discovering an EICR expired two years ago when a leaseholder asks for it at sale.