HMO electrical requirements in Nottingham come from two directions at once: the law that applies to every rented home in England, and the licence conditions set by whichever council covers the property. Every house in multiple occupation must have its fixed wiring inspected and tested at intervals not exceeding five years by a qualified person, and the council can require a copy of that report in writing within seven days. An HMO is broadly a property let to three or more people forming two or more households who share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet. An EICR — Electrical Installation Condition Report — is the written result of that inspection. What catches landlords out is rarely the inspection, but the paperwork around it, which depends on which council's area the house sits in. Around Nottingham that is not always the council the postal address suggests. What are the HMO electrical requirements in Nottingham? Three sets of duties overlap, and they are not alternatives to one another. Under the Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006, regulation 6, the manager must have every fixed electrical installation inspected and tested at intervals not exceeding five years by a qualified person, obtain a certificate of the results, and supply it to the local housing authority within seven days of a written request. This applies to HMOs generally, not only licensable ones. The Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020 cover private rented homes including HMOs: testing at least every five years, a copy of the report to the existing tenant within 28 days and to any new tenant before they occupy, and remedial or further investigative work within 28 days — or sooner where the report specifies. Then the licence itself. Nottingham City Council requires a valid, in-date and satisfactory EICR or Electrical Installation Certificate with the application, and its HMO conditions require the previous five years of inspection records and a declaration as to the installation's safety within 28 days of a demand. Which council licenses an HMO in Arnold or Nottingham? Worth settling first. Greater Nottingham is covered by four housing authorities — Nottingham City Council and the boroughs of Gedling, Broxtowe and Rushcliffe — each running its own schemes. Arnold is in Gedling Borough, not Nottingham City, though the address reads Nottingham. Landlords with property either side of that boundary routinely apply the wrong rules to half of it. Mandatory licensing is national: an HMO occupied by five or more people forming two or more households needs a licence. The old three-storey condition was removed on 1 October 2018, so a two-storey house let to five sharers is licensable too. Above that floor the schemes diverge: • Nottingham City Council also runs additional licensing for smaller HMOs — three or more people from two or more households — citywide, from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2028. • Gedling Borough Council , which covers Arnold, uses mandatory licensing plus selective licensing in designated areas: Netherfield from 5 January 2025 to 4 January 2030, and prescribed areas of Carlton Hill, Colwick, Daybrook and Newstead Village from 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2027. • Broxtowe and Rushcliffe operate mandatory licensing on the national threshold. Daybrook adjoins Arnold, and designations are drawn by prescribed area rather than by ward, so check the address against Gedling's own designated-area map rather than assume either way. Licensing status decides the paperwork; it does not change the standard the wiring has to meet. Does an HMO need an EICR more often than an ordinary rental? The legal floor is the same five years. What varies is what the licence adds: some conditions require a report free of C1 and C2 codes and explicitly described as satisfactory, and some require testing more often than the statutory minimum. An inspector can also recommend a date earlier than five years, and that becomes the date you work to. Your own licence conditions are the operative document. What is different about the wiring in an HMO? One requirement is genuinely HMO-specific. BS 7671, the wiring standard, requires arc fault detection devices on single-phase final circuits supplying socket outlets rated up to 32 A in houses in multiple occupation, purpose-built student accommodation and care homes; elsewhere they are recommended rather than required. AFDDs are roughly twice the width of a circuit breaker, so replacing an HMO board often means a physically larger board than the space the old one occupied. The standard has just moved. BS 7671:2018+A4:2026 was published on 15 April 2026 and the previous version is withdrawn on 15 October 2026. The HMO arc fault requirement is unchanged between the 2022 and 2026 amendments, but it is worth asking which version new work or your next inspection is carried out to. What should a landlord have ready before the council asks? The seven-day window is short, and it starts when the council writes to you. Everything below is paperwork and observation — none of it involves touching an installation. • A current EICR for the fixed installation, dated within five years and carried out by a qualified person. • Written confirmation that anything coded C1 or C2 has been put right, with dates — what each EICR code means is worth knowing first. • Proof the report went to existing tenants within 28 days, and to any new tenant before they moved in. • The licence conditions, read rather than filed — any shorter testing interval is written there. • Servicing and test records for the fire detection system, to the grade the licence specifies. • Smoke alarms on each storey with living accommodation, and carbon monoxide alarms where a fixed combustion appliance sits in a habitable room, confirmed working. Both are required by the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015, as amended on 1 October 2022. • For appliances supplied with the letting — cooker, washing machine, the vacuum in the hall cupboard — a record that they are checked and safe. • A route for tenants to report a fault, and a record of what was done when they did. The only checks to make personally are the ones done by looking: pressing an alarm test button, confirming nothing is scorched, cracked or hanging loose, and that the consumer unit is accessible rather than boxed in behind belongings. Anything past looking — opening a board, investigating a circuit, putting right a coded fault — is for a qualified, registered electrician, and is usually notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations, whose scope is set out on GOV.UK. If something looks wrong, switch off at the socket if it is safe to do so and call someone registered — you can confirm a contractor's registration on the NAPIT register before booking. Do I need an EICR for an HMO that is not licensable? Yes. Regulation 6 of the 2006 management regulations applies to HMOs generally rather than only to licensed ones, and the 2020 private rented sector regulations apply to the tenancy in any case. A property below the licensing threshold still needs its fixed installation inspected and tested at intervals not exceeding five years by a qualified person. How long do I have to produce the report if the council asks? Seven days from a written request, under regulation 6 of the 2006 regulations. That is a separate clock from Nottingham City Council's HMO licence conditions, which require the previous five years of inspection and testing records together with a declaration as to the safety of the installation within 28 days of a demand. Does the five-year cycle restart when tenants change? No. The cycle attaches to the installation rather than the tenancy, so a change of occupants does not reset it or bring it forward. What a change of tenant does trigger is the duty to give the new occupier a copy of the existing report before they move in, and a reason to check whether the new occupancy changes the licensing position. Is PAT testing a legal requirement in an HMO? There is no blanket statutory rule setting a fixed testing interval for appliances in a domestic HMO. The duty is that any appliance supplied as part of the letting is safe, and a licensing authority can attach conditions requiring evidence of that and ask to see it. Check what your own licence conditions say rather than assuming an annual cycle. Getting the electrical side of an HMO licence right Somo Electrical is a NAPIT-registered electrical contractor, registration number 33320, carrying out landlord electrical safety certificates and electrical testing and inspection across Nottingham and the surrounding boroughs, including Arnold . Shared houses take longer to inspect than a single let — more circuits, more points to sample, often more than one board — so what an EICR involves on the day is worth reading first. If you are not sure which scheme your property falls under, tell us the address and we will tell you what the inspection needs to cover. Call 07733 666004 or use our online quote form . Regulatory position checked 25 September 2026 against published guidance from Nottingham City Council, Gedling Borough Council, GOV.UK, and IET and BSI announcements on BS 7671. The primary texts on legislation.gov.uk and the councils' own pages were not reachable from the environment this post was drafted in, so confirm the detail with your council before relying on it — only the council can confirm which scheme a specific address falls under. Not legal advice.