Do ceiling roses need to be moved when earthing lights?
Do ceiling roses need to be moved when earthing lights?


In general, no.




  lights in my house all needed earthing


I'm surprised that your UK house had no earth wires in the lighting circuit. So far as I know it has been standard since at least 1966 (14th Edition).

In addition, so far as I know, many or most ceiling or pendant lights have no exposed conductive parts and no extraneous conductive parts. There is often nothing exposed below the ceiling that can be earthed even if you wanted to.




  Could the job have been completed without moving the ceiling roses? 


Yes.

I know of no compelling reason to change the location of the ceiling roses. 


  If so what would an electrician have needed to do


My guess is that there was a problem with the condition and resistance/continuity of the existing conduit used as an earth (more properly called a circuit protective conductor or CPC nowadays).

Running a new earth wire through a conduit can be troublesome and many electricians might not be willing to attempt it. It seems plausible that the electrician abandoned the use of the old conduit and ran new twin and earth (T&amp;E) cable alongside without taking the time to remove any of the existing conduit.

This might have made it difficult to run the new wiring to the places occupied by the now-disused conduit or by fittings associated with it.


  and would it have cost a lot more? 


If my guesses above are right, it would have taken more time to remove the ends of existing conduit and properly deal with the associated old wiring.

We don't know exactly what the electrician did or what other options were available to them. Having a letting agent act as a middleman may have meant there was no opportunity for you and the electrician to discuss options.



This work doesn't seem to have properly met your needs. Note that I am not a qualified electrician - you might like to get an independent assessment from a reputable firm.

I suspect your main concern is the poor quality of the visible remedial work. If so, it might be best to focus on that.



The quality of the workmanship on the repair to the ceiling is certainly very poor. I would say that is unacceptable. I think you have reasonable grounds to complain to the letting agents about the work carried out by their contractor.