Officials at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) have pulled the latest update to the Electrical Safety Standards because discrepancies in its wording were causing confusion among landlords and the wider industry.

The MHCLG updated its guidance on the Electrical Safety Standards in the Private Rented Sector (England) Regulations 2020, which suggested that landlords must ensure that national standards for electrical safety are met within their properties by 1 June, despite originally stating that they had a month after that date to comply.

This could have meant that millions of landlords were suddenly not compliant with the regulations and who could in theory be issued with a remedial notice by their local council. An MHCLG spokesperson has now clarified that the update has indeed been causing more problems that it was solving and that, therefore, officials are to roll back the new guidance and re-publish the original version.

The spokesperson reportedly stated: “The guidance is complicated and is intended for both landlords, agents and local authorities and therefore it needs to be clearer so we’re going to go back to the original and work on making it clearer.”