Part P explained: notifiable electrical work in England and Wales

Part P is the section of the Building Regulations (England and Wales) that makes safety a legal requirement for domestic electrical work, and it makes certain jobs "notifiable": installing a new circuit, replacing a consumer unit, and work in special locations such as around baths and showers. Notifiable work must go through either an electrician registered with a competent person scheme, or building control. Everything else (additions and alterations to existing circuits outside special locations, and like-for-like replacements) still has to be safe and certified to BS 7671, but does not need notifying.

The two compliance routes

1. Registered competent person (NICEIC, NAPIT, and other scheme members): the electrician self-certifies, notifies the scheme, and the homeowner receives a Building Regulations compliance certificate, typically within a few weeks of the job. This is the ordinary route, invisible to the customer beyond the certificate arriving.
2. Building control: for unregistered installers (or determined DIYers), the local authority or an approved inspector is told before work starts, inspects, and issues the completion evidence. Slower and costs a fee, which is, candidly, most of the commercial argument for scheme membership.

Part P certification is not BS 7671 certification

The confusion that launches a thousand forum threads. Two separate regimes, two separate documents:

	BS 7671 certificate (EIC/MEIWC)	Building Regs compliance certificate
What it evidences	The work was designed, built and tested to the wiring regulations	The notifiable work was notified and complies with the Building Regulations
Who issues it	The electrician who did the work	The scheme (or building control)
When needed	All electrical installation work	Notifiable work only

Notifiable work should produce both. Non-notifiable work produces the BS 7671 paperwork alone: a minor works certificate for that extra socket is required by the wiring regulations even though building control never hears about it.

What happens when work wasn't notified

It surfaces at sale time: the buyer's solicitor asks for the compliance certificate for the rewire, and there isn't one. The fixes are all worse than doing it right: a regularisation application to building control (fees, inspection of work that may now be buried in walls), an indemnity insurance policy (which insures against enforcement, not against the wiring), or a renegotiated price. Local authorities also hold enforcement powers, though sale-time friction is the consequence people actually meet. For landlords and homeowners the takeaway is one question asked before the job: "Are you registered to self-certify this, or are we notifying building control?"

Wales and Scotland

Wales runs Part P with its own thresholds. Notably, its notifiable list has stayed broader than England's post-2013 trimmed list, so check the current Welsh rules rather than assuming England's. Scotland has no Part P at all: domestic electrical work falls under the Scottish building standards system with its own warrant rules. The BS 7671 certification duty is UK-wide regardless.

For the trade

The paperwork trail for a notifiable domestic job is: EIC (or MEIWC where applicable) issued to the client, notification to your scheme, compliance certificate to the property owner. Pascal handles the first, issuing full model-form certificates from the job, and holding it on the same record as the quote and invoice means the "can you resend the certificate from 2024?" call is a ten-second search, not a loft expedition.