Electrical certificate (boletín eléctrico / CIE)

The certificado de instalación eléctrica — the boletín — is the document that says a property's electrical installation meets the regulations. You will be asked for one at specific moments, and almost always with a deadline attached.

To be clear about how we work: we inspect the installation, carry out whatever is needed to bring it up to standard, and prepare the documentation. The certificate itself is issued and signed by an authorised installer we work with, because issuing it is a regulated act. You deal with us throughout, and the certificate comes back properly signed.

When do you actually need one?

Five situations, and they account for nearly every enquiry we get. Contracting electricity supply at a property for the first time. Increasing your contracted power beyond what the existing certificate covers. Restoring supply to a property that has been without it for more than a year. Registering a property as tourist accommodation. And, frequently, at the point of sale, where a buyer or their lawyer asks for it.

The one that catches people most often is the year without supply. A property inherited, left empty between owners, or closed up while a renovation stalled will not simply be reconnected: the distributor requires a current certificate first, and that requirement appears at the point you are trying to move in.

The other frequent surprise is the power increase. Adding air conditioning, an induction hob or a car charger can take a property past what its existing certificate covers, and the certificate then has to be brought up to date before the increase goes through.

What does the inspection cover?

The installation as it actually is, not as it was when built. In practice that means the consumer unit and its protective devices, the earthing arrangement and its continuity, the circuits and their conductor sizes, insulation resistance, and the specific requirements for wet areas — bathrooms and kitchens have their own rules about what may be where.

It is a measurement exercise. Insulation resistance and earth continuity are tested with instruments rather than judged by eye, and those two are where a superficially tidy installation most often fails.

What it does not cover is appliances, decoration or anything downstream of a socket. A property can pass with old sockets and pass with visible surface trunking; what it cannot pass with is an absent earth or a circuit whose insulation has degraded.

What fails most often here?

Four things, in order. An absent or ineffective earth, which is extremely common in properties built before the 1970s and is invisible until tested. A consumer unit without adequate residual current protection, or with one device covering the entire property. Bathroom installations that do not respect the zone requirements — a socket or a switch where the rules do not allow one. And degraded insulation on old circuits, usually where cable has been running warm for years in a conduit shared with more load than it was intended for.

None of those are exotic. All four are findable in an hour and fixable, and knowing which of them applies before you commit to a deadline is the whole value of looking early.

The one that changes the size of the job is the earth. Everything else is generally a contained repair; a property with no functional earthing needs that resolved first, and how big a job that is depends on the building.

How long does it take?

The inspection itself is a visit. If the installation passes, the documentation follows quickly. If it does not, the timetable is set by the remedial work rather than by paperwork, which is why the useful thing is to look early rather than to book the certificate and hope.

The part that is genuinely outside anyone's control is the administrative step afterwards, which runs at its own pace. If you are working to a deadline — a completion date, a tourist licence, a supply reconnection you need before a tenant arrives — tell us the date at the start. It changes the order in which we do things.

The pattern that goes wrong is always the same: someone books a certificate for the week they need it, the installation fails on the earth, and there is no time left. Two weeks of margin removes almost all of that risk.

What if the property fails?

You get told exactly what failed and what each item costs to put right, before anything is done. A failed inspection is not a wasted visit — it is a list, and the list is what you needed in the first place.

You are also free to have the remedial work done by someone else and come back. We would rather tell you what is wrong and lose the repair than find more than there is.