Electrics and gas

What should you ask if a kitchen was rewired and there is no building-regulations paperwork?

Ask your solicitor to check whether the work needed building-regulations approval and whether a competent-person certificate or a building-control notice exists. A surveyor can see a new consumer unit or a new kitchen. They cannot see a certificate that was never shown to them, and they do not issue one.

Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.

What is the fuller explanation?

GOV.UK explains that building regulations approval is how work is signed off, and that competent-person schemes are one way electrical work is certified. Not every replacement of a socket is notifiable. A new circuit often is. The survey is the wrong instrument for that legal test. It can say the installation looks recent and that it was not tested. Your solicitor asks the seller for the paper and tells you what a missing certificate means for this purchase.

Absence of paper is not proof the cables are unsafe, and presence of paper is not an EICR for today. If you want condition, ask an electrician. If you want legality of the past work, ask the solicitor and the council route GOV.UK describes. Keep the two files separate when you renegotiate. There is no standard price reduction for a missing certificate, and this page will not invent one.

What should you ask your surveyor?

What electrical work could you see, and what did you not test?
Are you commenting on condition, or on the absence of a certificate you were not given?
What should the solicitor ask the seller to produce?

What are the typical next steps?

Tell your solicitor about the new kitchen or new board before exchange.
Do not withhold a figure for “illegal electrics” until you know whether approval was required and whether it exists.
If you also want safety codes, instruct an EICR as its own job.

Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.

Also asked about this

Does a Part P sticker on the board prove the whole house?

It proves what the certificate covers, if you read it. It may be one circuit. Ask for the certificate, not a photo of a sticker.

Can the surveyor regularise the work?

No. Regularisation is a building-control process. The surveyor reports condition.