How to check an EICR or safety certificate is genuine

What a QR code proves, and what it does not

Every document issued through TradeBooked carries a QR code and a private verification link. Scanning it opens the record the issuing business created. That is a genuinely useful thing, and it is a much smaller thing than the word verified usually suggests, so it is worth being blunt about the boundary.

A verification link tells you a document is the one that was issued. It cannot tell you the work behind it was any good. If a platform implies its QR code makes a certificate verified in the sense of verified as correct, it is overselling, and we are not going to do that here.

How to check a TradeBooked document

The page the link opens shows you, and only shows you:

• what kind of document it is, and its reference number
• the business that issued it, and the date they issued it
• the inspection date
• the next due date, where that type of document renews at all
• the property, masked to the first line of the address and the outward half of the postcode
• a short document fingerprint
• a clear warning if a newer version has replaced it, with the reference number of the replacement

You will not see the PDF, the readings, the schedules, the occupier, or anyone’s contact details. A draft that was never issued resolves to nothing at all, so an unfinished document can never be made to read as genuine. For the full report, ask the business that issued it.

Why there is no lookup by number or address

Because verification is proof of possession. The only key that works is the unguessable token inside the document’s own QR code. A search by certificate number or by address would let anyone walk a street, or count upwards through reference numbers, and read other people’s compliance records. That is a worse outcome than the mild inconvenience of needing the document in front of you.

What TradeBooked documents you might be handed

Electricians using TradeBooked can produce an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR), a Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificate and an EV charge point installation record, plus a PAT testing record. Security engineers can produce the minor works certificate only.

What a genuine EICR shows, whoever produced it

An EICR follows a model form published with the wiring regulations, so real reports look broadly alike whichever software or paper pad produced them. Whatever the layout, the following should all be there and filled in.

• Who inspected. The inspector’s name and position, and the business they inspected for. On a larger job the person who authorised the report for issue is named too.
• Their scheme and registration number. A competent person scheme (NICEIC, NAPIT and others) plus the number itself. Older reports may name ELECSA or Stroma, brands since folded into NICEIC and NAPIT. A blank here is the single biggest red flag on the page.
• Why the report was produced, and what was inspected: the extent of the inspection, any limitations agreed beforehand, and who they were agreed with. Limitations are normal. Silence about them is not.
• The supply and earthing details at the origin: earthing arrangement, external loop impedance Ze, prospective fault current, main switch and bonding.
• A schedule of inspection, item by item, with an outcome against each.
• A schedule of test results, circuit by circuit, with actual measured numbers: continuity, insulation resistance, polarity, earth fault loop impedance Zs, RCD disconnection times. A report with no readings is not an EICR, whatever it says at the top.
• Observations, each carrying a classification code and pointing back to the schedule item it came from. If there are none, the report should positively state that no remedial action is required, rather than simply leaving the section empty.
• An overall assessment, satisfactory or unsatisfactory, that agrees with the codes below it.
• A date for the next inspection, with the inspector’s reason for choosing that interval.
• A signature. An unsigned report is a draft.

The codes: C1, C2, C3 and FI

Every observation on an EICR carries one of four classification codes. They are the fastest way to read a report you did not commission.

There is no national database of EICRs in the UK

This is the part people arrive looking for, so it deserves saying plainly. There is no public register of Electrical Installation Condition Reports, no central archive, and no way to type in an address or a certificate number and see whether a report exists. Nothing you can do online will produce one.

The reason is structural rather than an oversight. New electrical work in a home in England and Wales is notifiable under Part P of the building regulations, and a registered electrician notifies it through their scheme, which is why a building regulations compliance certificate for that work can be requested again later. A condition report is not new work. It is an inspection of what is already there, so it is not notified to anyone, and there is no public register or council file you can request it from. The only complete copies are the inspector’s own records and the one you were given.

So the practical check is not the report. It is the person who signed it.

How to check the electrician independently

Take the scheme name and registration number off the report and look them up yourself. The registers below are free to search. The last link is an independent charity rather than a register, and it is the one to read if you are not sure what to do next.

• Registered Competent Person Electrical

  One search across every government authorised scheme, covering electricians registered to work in homes in England and Wales. Start here if you do not know which scheme the electrician is with.

• NICEIC

  Search for the business by name, postcode or registration number. ELECSA registrations were moved across when that brand was retired, so an ELECSA number on an older report is checked here.

• NAPIT

  Find an installer, and check what work their registration actually covers. The Stroma installer scheme merged into NAPIT in 2021, so a Stroma number is checked here too.

• Electrical Safety First

  Independent charity. Plain English guidance on inspections, landlord duties and what to do about unsafe work.

Two details make the difference. Check that the registration was live on the date of the inspection, not just today. And when you ring to confirm the report, use the number on the register, not the number printed on the document you are trying to check.

If you think a report has been made up

Fabricated electrical reports are a real problem, and the people who suffer are the tenants living with work that was never done. If something does not add up, this is the order to work through.

1. Ask the electrician named on it for the original, direct from them. A refusal, or a copy that differs from yours, tells you a lot.
2. Look the registration number up on the register above and ring the electrician on the number the register gives.
3. If they are scheme registered, report it to that scheme. Schemes have a complaints and technical route, can inspect the installation, and can act against a member.
4. If they are not registered, or you believe the installation is unsafe, contact your local authority. For a rented home, the private housing or environmental health team enforces the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020. Building control handles Part P for notifiable work.
5. If money changed hands for an inspection that did not happen, report it to Action Fraud, or to Police Scotland if you are in Scotland.
6. If you think there is immediate danger, do not wait for any of the above. Get a registered electrician out to isolate and make safe.

Electrical Safety First publishes plain English guidance on all of this and is worth reading before you escalate.

Common questions