Gas safe certificate

Sparkl3

Hello everyone, I’m in the process of selling my house. 

Got a new boiler installed at the end of January, found the company via checkatrade (in fact, they were the only one who replied to my job post and with a baby we needed hot water and heating as soon as possible) 

Plumber said that the appropriate paperwork would be sent, so paid and left a review. I’m not familiar with gas safe and it turns out the boiler hasn’t been registered - buyers solicitor has asked for a certificate. 

I got back in touch with the plumber nearly 2 weeks ago to ask for this to be rectified and he said he’d sort it. I’d have expected it to at least come up on the website if he had.

Has anyone had any experience in this issue or what I can do? Gas safe says to contact the person who did the installation, which I have done, but I can’t exactly force him to do it can I… 

Thanks in advance for the help

Mark_d

Is the plumber actually on the gas safe register?
https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/

Sparkl3

Mark_d said:

Is the plumber actually on the gas safe register?
https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/

He is yes, it matches up with the gas safe number he’s put on the gas safety record sheet 

Slinky

Sounds like the only thing you can do is to continue to put pressure onto the plumber to complete the certificate, if necessary threatening to retract your presumably positive review and posting something more about your experience.  An awful lot of trades people are good at what they do, but paperwork and customer service isn't their forte in my experience.

Did you also have a new pressurised hot water cylinder? That also needs to be registered.

Mark_d

Maybe you can get the gas safe register people to remind your plumber to register the boiler.  Hopefully that'll be the push they need

Sparkl3

No we don’t have a water cylinder so that’s one less thing to worry about. Thank you, will just have to keep pestering him, just could do without it when he should have already done it! At least I’ll know for next time!

Brie

could you get someone else to check it and give you a certificate?  (don't know if this is possible but might be an alternative)

silvercar

You could get a gas safety certificate, the sort that landlords do annually for rented property. That should reassure buyers that it is safe.

ThisIsWeird

There's a steady trickle of threads on here about folk waiting silly periods for a gas or leccy installation cert. Almost always not malicious or dodgy, but comes down to a disorganised or lazy installer.
Perhaps they just put off such 'boring' paperwork to the end of the month, and then forget/can't be arrised. To them, they know its 'ok', and don't recognise what the fuss is about - it'll pop through your letterbox at some point...
You need this quickly, tho', Spark, and I presume you told him why - "it's holding up your house sale"? Get in touch again, and apply the 'soz, but it's URGENT, and I will have to report this if...' lever.

Bigphil1474

There's maybe a bit of confusion here. When you have a boiler installed, the gas engineer (most I've dealt with don't like being called a plumber) will register the installation through Gas Safe for the council, and GS will send you a certificate for building regs. compliance. Should be registered within 28 days of installation. You can order duplicates from GS should you need one. 

The engineer should also do a gas safe certificate for the installation of the boiler, which will be a piece of paper they leave with you (called a Landlords gas safe check or similar)- if you have a gas fire or gas hobs etc. you might need another one for the whole property if not included. Be a bit inefficient if that was the case, but you never know. 

Unfortunately, as others have said, trades can be great at their job but rubbish at admin. We recently had some guttering replaced and the roofer asked us to post a review as we were happy with his work - told him we would as soon as we got the paperwork showing what work was done for our buyer. Took about a week but we got there. 

I think the best you can do is keep pestering him, and tell him it's just for the buyer. Also, maybe hint that the review might change. It's a key thing as it needs to be registered. You could get another gas engineer in and get them to notify it after checking it, but that's more money if you can get one out in the first place. Easier with the original guy. I would recommend joining a local Facebook group for your area and getting recommendations off there. Our local group is full of good and bad reviews for local trades. 

Sparkl3

Thanks all.

 Ok so we DO have a gas safety record sheet from when he installed the boiler so that has been sent to the buyers solicitor.

He definitely hasn’t registered the boiler with gas safe - we’ve done a postcode check and nothing comes up. He said almost 2 weeks ago he’d do it retrospectively (I looked online it costs over £300 to do it, at the time he said he’d ’forgotten his debit card and would do it when he got home’. In January when it was done he knew we needed all the paperwork as the house was up for sale. 

It’s just frustrating I hate having to pester people and sort of ‘threaten’ them with retracting my positive review on checkatrade but he is the only one who’s able to register the boiler and it should have been done.

Thanks again for all the replies, you’ve all given me some good information and advice I really appreciate you taking the time to reply!