We have a leasehold property that has been empty for a few months and our estate agent reminded us that we needed to get an EICR because we would have new tenants after 1st July 2020. We asked our trusted electrician to do this, which entailed a full rewire and new consumer unit, and the works were completed by the end of June. Our freeholder is Lewisham Council, and when I enquired about permission to replace a double-glazed window unit, I was referred to their website and discovered that we should have applied for permission beforehand to have the electric works done, and that it is going to cost £300 to get retrospective permission, because we broke the terms of our lease. We are quite frustrated that we are being penalised for something that we did not know about, and wonder how many other landlords might get caught by this. We also would like to know whether we can argue that we should not be charged for retrospective permission for new rules that the government has imposed.
