Rules of Registration and Regulation of Registered Electrical Contractors
Who may contract for electrical work
Registration as an electrical contractor is what legally separates a person or firm permitted to contract for electrical work from an individual electrician who may only work under such a contractor. Understand the three roles that questions love to blur: the registered electrical contractor (the business entity holding registration), the qualified/authorised electrician (the competent person who certifies), and the registered electrical worker (the individual on the register). A firm can hold contractor registration only if it has at least one appropriately qualified person attached to it; losing that person normally suspends the firm's ability to certify work.
The regulator and the register
Know who administers registration, what the register records (contractor name, nominated qualified person, scope), and the grounds for refusal, suspension or revocation - fraud, incompetence, unsafe work, failure to certify, or employing unqualified persons. Conditions can be attached to a registration, and working outside those conditions is itself an offence. Distinguish registration (entry on the register) from licensing/authorisation (personal competence to certify) and from membership of a trade body (voluntary, no legal effect).
Duties that flow from registration
A registered contractor must keep records, issue the required certificates for notifiable work, maintain insurance/indemnity where required, notify the regulator of changes (change of qualified person, address, cessation), and cooperate with inspections and complaint investigations. Advertising or holding out as registered when not registered is an offence.
Traps
Questions often present a qualified electrician issuing a completion certificate for a firm that is not registered - that is invalid. Another trap: assuming registration is transferable to a new owner or new legal entity; it is not, it must be re-applied for. Watch for 'the electrician is registered, therefore the company may contract' - personal registration does not confer contractor status.
Rule of thumb: no registered contractor + nominated qualified person = no valid certification, regardless of who did the wiring.