What a Completion Certificate is and why your solicitor asks for it

Most people in Ireland first hear the words “Completion Certificate” from their solicitor, months into a house sale, about work that was done years ago by someone whose number they no longer have. That is the worst possible moment to learn what it is, because by then the only fix is slow and the sale is waiting on it.

What the certificate actually is

A Completion Certificate is the document a Registered Electrical Contractor issues when they finish restricted electrical work. It is not a receipt and it is not a courtesy. It is a signed declaration that the installation conforms to the national wiring rules, I.S. 10101, backed by the contractor’s registration.

Two details are worth knowing because they are where certificates go wrong. First, the certificate is only complete if the contractor has confirmed the post-connection tests on it, so a form filled in before the installation was tested and energised is not a finished certificate. Second, you are not the only one who gets a copy. The original goes to you and a copy goes to Safe Electric, which is what allows the scheme to audit the work behind it.

Which work produces one

Certification follows the category of work, not the size of the bill. Restricted electrical works are defined in law under the Electricity Regulation Act 1999 (Restricted Electrical Works) Regulations 2013, and since October 2013 only a Registered Electrical Contractor may carry them out. In practice that covers replacing or altering the fuse board, installing a new circuit, rewiring in whole or in part, and work in bathrooms and other special locations. Alterations, additions and extensions to an existing installation fall inside it too, which catches most extension and attic conversion work.

Swapping a like-for-like socket faceplate does not produce a certificate and does not need to. If you are unsure which side of the line your job sits on, ask the contractor to tell you in writing before they start, because that answer also tells you what you should be handed at the end.

New connections and alterations to the supply

Where the job involves a new or altered ESB connection, the certificate is not just for your file. ESB Networks will not energise the connection until the contractor’s regulatory body has sent them a validated completion certificate. If someone tells you the power can go on and the paperwork can follow, that is not how the process works.

Why it surfaces when you sell

Conveyancing in Ireland runs on a standard set of pre-completion queries, the Law Society’s Requisitions on Title, which the buyer’s solicitor puts to the seller’s solicitor. Work carried out on the house is part of what gets asked about, and where the work was of a kind that legally required certification, the buyer’s side will want to see the certificate rather than take your word that a good electrician did it.

This is why a missing certificate stops being an abstract problem the moment a sale is agreed. The buyer’s solicitor is not being difficult. They are protecting their client from buying an installation nobody has certified, and they have no way of doing that other than asking for the document.

Keep the certificate with the house documents, not with the electrician’s invoice in a drawer. It belongs to the property in the same way a boiler service record or a planning grant does.

If the work was done and there is no certificate

Start with the contractor. If they were registered at the time and are still trading, they hold a copy and this is usually a phone call rather than a project. That is by far the cheapest outcome, so exhaust it before anything else.

If the contractor cannot be found, has stopped trading, or was never registered in the first place, understand what is and is not possible. A Registered Electrical Contractor cannot retrospectively certify someone else’s work as if they had done it. What they can do is inspect and test the installation and issue a Periodic Inspection Report. Safe Electric is explicit that a Periodic Inspection Report is a report and not a Completion Certificate. It records the condition of the installation, lists defects, damage, deterioration and any non-compliance, and grades each item by how urgently it needs attention.

That report is not the document the solicitor originally asked for, but it is usually what the transaction ends up working from, because it puts an independent, registered assessment of the installation on the table. Where the report identifies work that needs doing, having that work carried out by a Registered Electrical Contractor does produce a Completion Certificate for that work.

The honest summary is that there is no paperwork shortcut. The installation has to be looked at by someone registered, and whatever they find has to be dealt with.

If a contractor will not issue one

You do not have to accept this. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, which regulates the Safe Electric scheme, states that Registered Electrical Contractors are required to provide completion certificates and that you can complain to Safe Electric if you did not receive one or if the contractor refuses to provide it. The same route exists for reporting someone carrying out restricted electrical work without being registered.

The version of this problem you can still prevent

If you are having work done now, three things keep you out of it entirely:

• Confirm before booking whether the job is restricted work, and that a Completion Certificate will be issued.
• Ask for the contractor’s Safe Electric registration and look it up yourself rather than accepting a number over the phone.
• Do not make the final payment until the certificate is in your hand, with the post-connection tests confirmed on it.

That last point is the one that does the work. A certificate is very easy to obtain while a contractor still expects to be paid, and surprisingly hard to obtain four years later.