PAT Testing in Pinner

PAT Testing in Pinner: what is different here

Why most Pinner lets have no PAT rule at all

For most Pinner landlords, from Pinnerwood Park to Rayners Lane, testing appliances is a choice. The HSE's position is that the law does not require portable appliance testing as such, and that how often equipment is checked depends on the type of equipment and where it is used. The licensing that would add conditions mostly does not reach Pinner: none of its wards is among the six Harrow designated for selective licensing in 2026, nor is North Harrow ward, and private renting is lower here than in the borough, at 20.1% of households in Pinner ward, which takes in Pinner Green and Pinner Hill, against 29.6% for Harrow.

Testing earns its keep where a let is furnished: a house let with its contents while the owners are away, a flat over a shop with a fridge, washing machine and microwave, or a garden annexe with a kettle and heaters. A dated register shows exactly what you supplied and that it was checked when the tenancy began.

What Harrow's HMO conditions say about appliances

Shared houses are where the rules change. Every HMO licence must include conditions on supplied electrical appliances, and Harrow's version has three parts: appliances the licence holder makes available must be in a safe condition, declarations as to their safety must be provided, and operating instructions must be given to tenants at the start of their tenancy. The last part is easy to miss. Our register lists every supplied item by room, which makes gathering the instruction leaflets or manufacturers' links a short job.

The same conditions require fixed heating in an HMO to be maintained annually, with enough sockets in living rooms for fixed heaters and not all on one wall. Portable heaters that tenants bring in are not your appliances, but we note any we see, because an overloaded adaptor feeding a heater is a fire risk in a house where several people sleep.

Pinner shared houses after the Article 4 direction

From 12 June 2026, a new small HMO anywhere in Harrow has first needed a planning decision, and the council's licensing page now asks applicants to quote that planning reference or attach the decision notice. In Pinner, then, most shared houses are established ones, licensed under the mandatory scheme or, until it ended on 5 August 2026, under the previous additional scheme, which a new one replaces from 6 January 2027.

When a licence comes up for renewal, booking the appliance test alongside the electrical inspection puts one date on both documents. An Eastcote house share on the Hillingdon side of the boundary falls under Hillingdon's licensing and planning rules instead.

Shops, cafés and offices in the village centre

Pinner's High Street and Bridge Street are lined with shops, cafés and offices, several in listed or historic buildings. For a business, the law requires electrical equipment to be maintained so that it does not cause danger, and the testing interval follows the risk: a kettle in a back office sees gentler use than a hairdryer in daily use or a floor cleaner dragged round a café.

We test before opening or after closing where we can, label each item, and hand over the register before leaving. Older buildings often have few sockets, so extension leads and multi-way adaptors multiply, and we point out any that are overloaded or plugged into one another.

Furnished houses and garden buildings

Pinner's detached houses are often let with far more than a flat would hold: two fridge-freezers, a tumble dryer in the garage, lamps in every room and a heater in the garden office. Items kept in outbuildings get damp and get moved, so plugs and leads wear faster. Each item is tested in its usual spot; a cracked plug or wrong fuse is swapped there and then, and failures are labelled and withdrawn once you agree.

Official sources

• HSE: portable appliance testing FAQs
• Harrow Council: HMO conditions and amenity standards (version 5, May 2020)
• Harrow Council: HMO licence
• Harrow Council: selective licensing designations from 2026 (six wards)
• ONS Census 2021 via Nomis: tenure (TS054), Pinner, Pinner South and Hatch End wards and Harrow

Last reviewed October 2026 by EliteShires Property Services.