An agent emails about a property that needs a certificate before a tenancy starts in eleven days. The tenant currently in the property works shifts, nobody has a key, and the landlord is abroad.
The testing is a morning's work. Everything around it is the actual job.
Step 1: publish what the inspection covers
What is tested, what the report contains, how long it takes, what the codes in the report mean and what happens if remedial work is needed. Landlords receive a document full of notation and no explanation.
Step 2: point to the official requirement
Obligations change and vary. Linking to authoritative guidance, rather than restating the rules, keeps you accurate and keeps landlords properly informed.
Step 3: price it clearly by property size
Number of bedrooms or circuits, with the fee stated. Landlords with several properties are budgeting and will use whoever publishes a figure.
Step 4: separate inspection from remedial work
The certificate is one job. Any remedial work found is another, quoted separately. Saying so prevents the suspicion that faults are found to generate work.
Step 5: solve the access problem
Tenant contact details, key collection, whether you can contact the tenant directly, what notice is given and what happens on a no-access visit. This is what landlords and agents actually want help with.
Step 6: publish your no-access policy
Whether a charge applies, how it is avoided and how rebooking works. Failed visits are the largest cost in this work and a clear policy reduces them.
Step 7: turn one property into a portfolio
A landlord with one rental usually has more or will. Asking how many properties they have, at the first enquiry, is how a single job becomes a standing arrangement.
Step 8: build the renewal cycle
Certificates expire on a cycle. A reminder before expiry is both a service and the most reliable work a domestic electrician can have, and it only exists if the dates are recorded.
Step 9: coordinate with agents differently
Agents manage many properties, want consolidated invoicing and need documents in a specific format for their own records. Serving them properly brings volume.
Step 10: handle urgent safety findings correctly
Where an inspection finds something dangerous, it needs immediate action and clear communication, not a report emailed on Friday afternoon.
Step 11: never advise on legal obligations
What a landlord must do, by when, and the consequences of not doing it are matters for official guidance and their own advisers, which is the same boundary as in landlord and rental income tax enquiries.
Step 11b: explain what the report codes mean
Landlords receive a document full of classification codes and cannot tell whether they have a minor observation or something that must be fixed within days. A short page translating each code into plain language, and what it obliges them to do, saves a round of calls after every inspection and makes you the electrician they forward to other landlords.
Step 12: related work follows
Older properties often need more than a certificate, as covered in consumer unit and rewire enquiries from older homes, and anything dangerous is handled as in electrical faults that need a safety-first reply.
Getting started
Publish your inspection fee by property size, what the report covers, your access policy and renewal reminders, then capture portfolio details at any hour. SpideyChat for electricians answers from your published pages, and letting agents handle enquiries as described in an AI receptionist for letting agents. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.