"Charlie" wrote in message
m...
I'm thinking of letting my house on a lease to a housing association.
I've had an initial inspection and one point they've raised is the
need to move sockets from the skirting to a position above the
skirting.

What are the regulations covering this?

Health & Safety become usually become involved
with anything which is not owner occupier.
Socket positioning usually for convenince
and baby safety.

Chances are I will need to replace the wiring at the same time,
1)because theres unlikely to be enough slack 2)because the instalation
is old. Any hints and tips on doing this?

There's never any slack - Leccys don't think that way.

Assuming the cable is ok, would it be acceptable to make connections
below the floor to extend the cables, so they reach above the
skirting, in a junction box for example?

Junctions must be accessible for inspection

It occurs to me that the simplest way is to install brand new ring
circuits and then connect up to the consumer box when complete, at the
same time removing old connections and then removing the old
cables/sockets.

Yep, also put in a modern split CU which has RCD protection

On a seperate issue the lighting circuit is old, but with new(ish)
switches, so it looks ok. The wires to the switches are in metal
trunking. What are the dangers in not replacing this?

Lighting must have earth wiring, old conduit (trunking) wiring
usually relies on the conduit itself to provide the earth and it's
often done very badly.