PAT Testing in Northwood

PAT Testing in Northwood: what is different here

What Hillingdon's licence asks for, item by item

Three separate demands sit behind a Northwood HMO licence. At application, Hillingdon's proposed conditions want a declaration that supplied appliances are safe and in good working order, and the online form asks for a PAT certificate dated within the last 12 months. During the licence, the council can ask for test reports on the appliances, and a PAT report, within 14 days.

Underneath both, Schedule 4 of the Housing Act 2004 makes every licence require the holder to keep supplied appliances safe and to give a declaration on demand. One register listing every item by room, with its result and the date, answers all three.

• Declaration of appliance safety with the application
• PAT certificate dated within 12 months on the application form
• Test reports to the council within 14 days of a demand
• Register kept by room so items can be traced

Furnished lets for Mount Vernon staff

Mount Vernon Cancer Centre on Rickmansworth Road, run by East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, sits on the western edge of Northwood, and furnished rooms and flats suit people working there on fixed-length contracts. A furnished let means more landlord appliances: kettle, toaster, microwave, vacuum, lamps, a television, sometimes a fridge in each room of a shared house.

NHS England consulted from January to March 2026 on moving the cancer centre to a new site beside Watford General Hospital. The trust's page, updated in September 2026, says a decision-making business case is being prepared and that there are no short-term changes to where patients are treated.

Shared kitchens in converted family houses

When a large Northwood house becomes a home for five or six sharers, the kitchen becomes the busiest room on any circuit: several kettles, two microwaves, an air fryer each. Tenant-owned items are their own responsibility, but overloaded extension leads and adaptors in a shared kitchen are a fire risk the licence holder will be asked about at an inspection.

We test what you supply, label each item, and note any tenant equipment running from your extension leads so you can raise it. Hillingdon's proposed conditions expect property inspections at reasonable intervals, typically every six months, which gives a natural point to look again.

Garden rooms, garages and outdoor kit

Big HA6 plots come with appliances outside the house: a mower or pressure washer left for tenants, a dehumidifier in a garage, a patio heater, a chest freezer in a garden room. If you leave it for the tenant to use, it is a supplied appliance and belongs on the register.

Equipment used outdoors takes knocks and damp, so it is a sensible place to test more often than a kettle in the hall. Anything you would rather not maintain is better removed before the tenancy starts than left with a note saying not to use it.

Fixed equipment belongs on the EICR, not the PAT register

In Northwood's electric-only flats, the storage heaters, the immersion heater, a hard-wired cooker and an electric shower are fixed equipment. They are covered by the EICR, not by portable appliance testing, and a PAT label on a storage heater proves nothing. Where a house has both, booking the two together saves a day: tenants are disturbed once, and if a socket circuit trips during testing the electrician can tell straight away whether the fault is in the appliance or the wiring.

Hillingdon's application asks for both documents, so keeping their dates close keeps the renewal simple.

Official sources

• Hillingdon Council: apply for an additional HMO licence (documents required)
• Hillingdon Council: proposed HMO licensing conditions (Appendix 2 to the Cabinet report)
• legislation.gov.uk: Housing Act 2004, Schedule 4 (mandatory licence conditions)
• HSE: portable appliance testing FAQs
• East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust: Mount Vernon Cancer Centre, Northwood HA6 2RN
• Nomis: Census 2021 TS046 central heating, Northwood and Northwood Hills MSOAs

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.