Electrical certification missing - can someone else sign it off?

This is a common tale, and in most cases the seller has no certifiactes as they were never issued one by the guy who did the work! i.e. they got a cheap job carried out. Legally the only person who can sign the certificate is the person who did the job in the first place and its illegal for someone else to sign off another persons work. The local authority could take a dim view of this and its possible for them to fine you as the new owners of the property for the non compliance with the law (£5000). As such you must ensure that your conveyance/solicitor seeks a full indemnity insurance from the sellers so that your covered should court action be taken against you in the future. Your best bet is to commission your own electrician (NICEIC recommended) and pay them to carry out a full EICR for you. If the installation is found to be unsatisfactory then you can re-negotiate on the asking price with the seller and get the works sorted out properly once you move in. I would not rely on the seller providing a certificate as its very easy to obtain a fake worthless certificate, and you could still end up having problems in the long run.

If the job was certified via the NICEIC then both that organisation and the Local Authority will have records of it. If the job was not certified, then an EICR will suffice. The accreditation bodies do not allow their members simply to sign off other electricians work, but a full EICR carries a certificate of its own and will highlight for you any variations from the current regulations that may be there. With that certificate you can shop around to get the best price for the work required (and it can give you leverage on the purchase price if there are faults present).

If a cert was issued, araman is right, the local authority should have bee notified so they could help you or contact the niceic as it should also have been notified to them and they could issue you a copy.

As a member of a registered organisation eg Napit or NICEIC you would keep records of all and any certs carried out as every year you get a site visit to deem whether you are competent to sign off and if your work is deemed satisfactory. It sounds to me a cert was never issued if they claim to have mislaid it in which case your only recourse is to have an EICR in order to check the safety and state of the electrics. It is a common thing now a days that people don’t want to pay electricians so they have handy men and builders carry out electrical work and then bring a electrician to test it. I can’t say this is ideal or safe as they are unaware of current electrical regulations/legislations and safety issues. However people do sign off this work but if anything does go wrong the responsibility falls on the tester as if something was to happen he has deemed the installation to be safe.