One person dies in the home each week and 1,000 people are seriously injured each day as the result of faulty electrical equipment and installation in people’s homes. Private rented sector tenants are disproportionately affected yet there is no legal requirement for landlords to regularly inspect and test the electricity in the properties they rent out.

Whereas annual gas checks have to happen by law, electrical testing is recommended as best practice but only undertaken voluntarily. Currently there is confusion between tenants and landlords about who is responsible for electrical safety. This is an oversight that is leaving millions of private renters vulnerable to injury. Due to the lack of security for private tenants, those who do complain to their landlords about electrical problems run the risk of retaliatory eviction, either at the end of their contract or with two months’ notice if they have a rolling tenancy.

Update, May 2016: The government has agreed to make electrical safety checks mandatory, though they have yet to publish the regulations to put this into force. We will keep the pressure on until they do.

Sign up to support Generation Rent’s calls to make electrical inspections a legal requirement.