Playbook 07 · Landlord & EICR

Turn landlord compliance into a recurring book of work

Every private rented home in England needs an EICR at least every five years, by law, forever. The electricians who treat that as a renewal business, with agents feeding it and remedials behind every failed report, build a diary that keeps refilling itself.

The opportunity

Since 2020, every private rented home in England has needed a satisfactory Electrical Installation Condition Report at least every five years, and that legal duty puts a standing stream of inspection work in front of any electrician organised enough to win it. The landlord has to commission the report, hand a copy to the tenant, produce it for the council on demand, and face a fine that can reach £30,000 per breach if they skip it. Demand like this does not depend on the weather, the housing market, or a homeowner deciding the job can wait another year.

Licensing multiplies the pressure. HMO licensing and the selective licensing schemes that councils keep expanding both put electrical certificates in front of an inspector, so licensed landlords book EICRs on a schedule rather than a whim. Letting agents are the other multiplier: one agent can manage compliance for fifty or two hundred landlords, and most agents want a single reliable electrician they can send every renewal to. Win the agent and you win the portfolio behind them.

Then there is the pipeline nobody prices in: remedials. An unsatisfactory report with a C1 or C2 code puts the landlord on a 28-day clock to get the work done and evidenced, which means every failed inspection hands you a quote for £150 to £2,000 or more of remedial work, delivered to a customer who is legally required to say yes to someone. The electrician who wrote the report is the natural someone.

£120–£250

typical price for a domestic EICR in the UK

Every 5 years

the legal inspection cycle on rented homes in England

£150–£2,000+

remedial work sitting behind an unsatisfactory report

Up to £30,000

the fine councils can issue a landlord per breach

The playbook

The plays we run

01A landlord page with the price on it. Landlords compare EICR quotes on price and turnaround before they ring anyone, so the page has to answer both up front. We build a dedicated landlord and EICR page that states your price band by property size, what the inspection covers, how fast the certificate comes back, and how remedials are quoted, then point SEO at the searches landlords actually type, like your town plus "eicr" or "landlord electrical certificate". A vague homepage loses this comparison every time; a page with a number on it gets the call.
02Letting-agent outreach with an SLA pitch. Agents refer the electrician who removes compliance risk from their desk. The pitch is a service-level agreement in plain terms: fixed pricing per property band, booking within days of instruction, direct-to-tenant scheduling so the agent never plays phone tag, certificates back within 48 hours, remedial quotes attached to every unsatisfactory report. We build the one-pager and the outreach sequence, because an agent who trusts your turnaround sends you every renewal on their books.
03Certificate-renewal reminders that run themselves. Every EICR you issue carries a known expiry date, which makes the recall the easiest booked job in your calendar, as long as something actually sends it. We set up automation that logs each certificate, then emails the landlord or agent at 90, 30, and 7 days before expiry with a one-click rebooking link. Five years is long enough for every landlord to forget you; the reminder is how the first job becomes the second.
04Batch scheduling for portfolio landlords. A portfolio landlord with a dozen properties wants one invoice and one conversation, and you want a full day in one postcode instead of five scattered callouts. We build the portfolio offer into the page and the agent pitch: a per-property rate at five or more properties, inspections clustered by area, one consolidated report pack. Batch days push your effective hourly rate up while the headline price stays competitive.
05Remedial quote follow-up on the 28-day clock. An unsatisfactory report starts a legal countdown, and the quote that arrives the same day usually wins the work. We template the remedial quote so it goes out with the report, then run follow-ups at set intervals until the landlord books or declines, using the cadence in our quote follow-up guide wired into your job software so nobody has to remember. Unfollowed remedial quotes are the single biggest leak in most EICR operations.
06Landlord reviews that mention turnaround. A review that says the certificate came back in two days and the tenant was contacted directly does your agent pitch for you. We give your team the ask script that prompts landlords and agents to name the thing they cared about, whether that is speed, scheduling, or the report pack, because those reviews rank you for landlord searches and pre-answer the questions the next agent will ask. The timing and templates come from what has worked across our client base; our reviews guide shows the mechanics.

Why a playbook

Tested on many. Rolled out to you.

We run this playbook across electrical firms in multiple markets, so we already know what an EICR page needs to say to beat a cheaper quote, which agent pitch gets a reply, and roughly what a landlord lead should cost before you spend anything. An electrician working this out alone burns months learning that agents ignore generic flyers and landlords shop on turnaround as much as price.

The system keeps improving after launch. Our software watches which pages, searches, and offers turn into booked inspections across every client and rolls the winners out to everyone. When one market finds a better renewal-reminder cadence or a licensing angle that converts, yours gets it too. If you want to try the DIY version first, our EICR marketing guide covers what you can run yourself.

And because we take one electrician per service area, the landlord page, the agent pitch, and the renewal machine work for you and nobody else nearby. Your competitor cannot buy the same playbook in your patch.

Hot markets

Where this playbook hits hardest

North West England

Manchester and Liverpool run some of the largest selective licensing schemes in the country, and the older terraced rental stock puts remedial work behind a high share of reports.

Marketing in North West England →

Yorkshire

Leeds and Sheffield carry big student HMO markets where licensing inspections keep the EICR calendar full through the summer changeover.

Marketing in Yorkshire →

London

The largest private rented sector in the UK, with letting agents managing portfolios at a scale where one agent relationship fills a diary.

Marketing in London →

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge for a domestic EICR?

Most domestic EICRs in the UK price between £120 and £250, moving on bedrooms, circuit count, and access. Racing below that band is how the work becomes unprofitable, because the report is the entry ticket and the margin lives in remedials, portfolio batching, and the five-year recall. Compete on turnaround and reliability instead of undercutting, because that is what agents actually buy.

Is EICR work profitable at that price?

The inspection alone is thin; what each report leads to is where the money sits. An unsatisfactory report carries £150 to £2,000 or more of remedial work, portfolio landlords buy batch days at strong effective rates, and every certificate you issue is a pre-booked job five years out. Priced and followed up properly, a compliance book earns more per marketing pound than one-off domestic callouts.

How do I get letting agents to send me work?

Pitch their compliance exposure rather than your qualifications. An agent is judged on whether every managed property holds a valid certificate, so the offer that lands is a service-level promise: fixed pricing, fast booking, direct tenant scheduling, certificates back within 48 hours, and remedial quotes attached to failures. One agent won this way can be worth dozens of properties a year, which is why agent outreach is a core play in this playbook.

Do I need to be in a competent person scheme to do EICRs?

The English regulations require the inspector to be qualified and competent, and scheme membership with a body like NICEIC or NAPIT is the simplest way to evidence that. Many letting agents and councils insist on it in practice, so treat membership as part of the pitch. It appears on the landlord page, the agent one-pager, and the report pack.

Does this playbook work outside England?

Yes. Scotland has required electrical inspections in private rented homes since 2015, and Wales brought in its own five-yearly duty under the Renting Homes Act, so the same page, agent, and renewal plays apply with the local rules swapped in. The licensing details differ by nation and council, which is why the pages we build cite the rules for your patch. See how we work across Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Ready to build a compliance book that refills itself?

One electrician per service area. If yours is open, the landlord page and the agent pitch start working the week you do. Tell us where you work and we'll check availability.

See if your area is open →Book a call directly →

No retainers to start · One electrician per service area

The services behind it

Office Automation SEO for Electricians Website Design