Part P explained: which electrical work is notifiable (and what happens if it isn’t notified)
Part P is two sentences of law with an outsized reputation: all electrical work in homes must be designed and installed safely — and some of it must be notified to building control. The detail that matters is which work is notifiable, and how registered electricians certify it without involving the council. Here’s the practical picture for England.
What Part P actually says
Part P of the Building Regulations applies to electrical installations in dwellings in England — houses, flats, and their gardens and outbuildings. It requires reasonable provision to be made in the design and installation of electrical installations to protect people from fire and injury.
In practice, compliance means the work meets BS 7671 (the Wiring Regulations) and, for notifiable work, that building control is told about it — either directly or through a registered installer’s self-certification.
Which work is notifiable in England
Since the scope was narrowed in 2013, three categories of domestic work are notifiable:
- Installing a new circuit
- Replacing a consumer unit (fuse board)
- Any addition or alteration to existing circuits in a special location — the zones around a bath or shower, or a room containing a swimming pool or sauna heater
What isn’t notifiable
Most everyday work: adding sockets, switches or lighting points to an existing circuit in normal rooms, like-for-like replacements of accessories or damaged cable, and maintenance. Not notifiable does not mean unregulated — the work must still be safe and to BS 7671, and it should still be certified with an EIC or Minor Works Certificate.
Wales kept the broader pre-2013 scope, so more work is notifiable there; Scotland has its own building standards system entirely. Check the rules where the job is.
The two routes to compliance
For notifiable work there are exactly two legitimate routes:
- A registered competent person: an electrician registered with a scheme such as NICEIC, NAPIT or ELECSA self-certifies the work, and the scheme notifies building control and issues the compliance certificate to the householder
- Building control directly: anyone else (including DIYers) must notify the local authority before starting, pay the building control fee — often several hundred pounds — and have the work inspected
What happens when it’s skipped
Unnotified notifiable work surfaces at the worst moment: a house sale. Buyers’ solicitors ask for compliance certificates; missing ones mean indemnity insurance, retrospective regularisation at the owner’s cost, or renegotiated prices. Local authorities can also require unsafe work to be removed or fixed, and non-compliance with building regulations is an offence.
For electricians, the commercial point is simpler: scheme registration is what lets you take on the full range of domestic work and hand the customer their compliance certificate — it’s the cost of playing.
Keeping the certificates straight
Every notifiable job generates paperwork — the electrical certificate, the building regs compliance certificate, and a customer who will lose both. TradeHub OS stores every certificate against the job and customer, produces EICs, MEIWCs and EICRs on site, and makes “can you resend my certificate?” a ten-second job instead of a shoebox hunt.
This guide is general information for UK trades and landlords, not legal advice. Always refer to the current regulations and official guidance from the HSE, Gas Safe Register or your competent-person scheme.
