Is it a crime for a plumber to lie on a gas safety check certificate?

AskAsk

BadBehaviour said:

AskAsk said:

calm down OP.  it is a gas safety certificate.  it is just a certificate to confirm if the boiler is safe and as someone had said, it doesn't mean he has certified that the boiler is fully functional, it just needs to be safe and not kill anyone.

i have looked at the certificates that i have (and i have many to refer to!) and none of them have the item about whether the tenant was present so i am surprised yours have this box on it.

what is strange is that the certificate states no CO alarm but it still passes.  this is the actual item that makes this certificate incorrect but in reality, you do have a CO alarm that is working so it may just be a wrong entry on the certificate.

if the boiler is not working, you need to pay for an engineer to come out and fix it.  someone doing a gas safety check is not responsible for fixing it and may not even have the skills to fix the boiler!  you don't pay much for the gas safety checks so you can't expect the level of work that you are referring to.

just count yourself lucky that you have passed the test else you would need to sort the boiler out ASAP.

You didn't understand the issue. I'm not the one who has to repair anything here. I'm not the landlord.

The lies I mentioned aren't related to whether the boiler is safe to use or not. They simply prove this certificate was produced fraudulently since a tenant was present and wasn't asked to sign because the plumber knew he hadn't checked anything and so couldn't ask for their signature. Do you get what I'm saying? The CO alarm is present and he says no. That means he checked and according to him there wasn't one. But there is one right there beside the boiler so this is more proof nothing was actually checked! 

Also, by saying no alarm he saying then the agency failed to comply with the law about this stuff. The agency confirmed themselves they installed the alarm so their plumber lied and that is proved without a doubt.

How can this certificate have any legal value when it was issued pretending to have done the checks and they haven't been done? The tenant was there and saw he didn't check anything he says he has checked on that certificate.

who is the landlord?  if you are not the landlord, are you the tenant?  why are you concerned if you are not the landlord or the tenant?

Myci85

I'm intrigued as to why you are so invested in this of you are neither the tenant or landlord. Has the tenant been issued a s21 and trying to dispute the validity of the gas certificate to delay it?
Is the tenant who was there aware of what checks are required to check the safety of the boiler, to be able to hand on heart say they weren't done?
Sounds like the engineer made a mistake in ticking no co alarm when there was one there, but the landlord has met their duty in supplying one. 
In my last rental I was often there when the gas certificate was done, but never asked to sign the certificate, it makes no difference whether it's signed by the tenant or not. So did the engineer actually say the tenant wasn't there, or did they simply not get them to sign the certificate? Again, I'm unsure why you feel this is such a big deal. 

AskAsk

Myci85 said:

I'm intrigued as to why you are so invested in this of you are neither the tenant or landlord. Has the tenant been issued a s21 and trying to dispute the validity of the gas certificate to delay it?
Is the tenant who was there aware of what checks are required to check the safety of the boiler, to be able to hand on heart say they weren't done?
Sounds like the engineer made a mistake in ticking no co alarm when there was one there, but the landlord has met their duty in supplying one. 
In my last rental I was often there when the gas certificate was done, but never asked to sign the certificate, it makes no difference whether it's signed by the tenant or not. So did the engineer actually say the tenant wasn't there, or did they simply not get them to sign the certificate? Again, I'm unsure why you feel this is such a big deal. 

i feel the OP is intentionally trying to make an issue out of this for his own benefit but as yet has not disclosed what that intention is.  it is correct what you say about the tenants not signing the certificate.  the engineer does not need to consult anyone to do the gas safety test.  the certificate doesn't have to be signed by anyone but for good practice, the landlord or the occuppier is supposed to sign the document to confirm that they have received it.

I feel the OP has alterior motives here.

Section62

BadBehaviour said:

...

Also, the issue with saying no tenant present means then he gained entry to the property himself but that's not true and the tenant has it in writing that they didn't allow him to come in with the keys before the appointment was booked so he broke into the property then since he says no tenant was there and if they were not there no one could have opened the door for him.

Anyway you spin this, he would have done something wrong. 

"I rang the doorbell, someone opened the door.  I introduced myself and asked if they were the tenant.  They said 'No, but you can come in anyway'.  As the tenant didn't need to be present in person I went in and cracked on with the job."

If that^ is what the engineer says then can you prove otherwise?

BikingBud

Unsure why the OP is getting a hard time over this.

A Gas SAFETY Check is there for a purpose, when clearly observable check items have not been acknowledged one should doubt the veracity of the check.

Does it matter if the OP is the landlord, tenant, tenant's great aunt Mavis if the SAFETY check was not completed to the required standard, supported by observable defects in the report, then the GSC provider should be called to task. Does it invalidate the check, does it mean the condition of the boiler safe or otherwise is not known, perhaps.

There may be some issues with access and claims of obstruction by the OP but they are entirely separate to the actual conduct and quality of the test.

If the OP wishes to raise an issue about the possibility of contesting any kind of re-possession activity based upon an erroneous check then I would offer that might be a different question entirely, but that has not yet been posed. 

subjecttocontract

If you feel a gas safety check hasn't been carried out properly then you should raise it with 'Gas Safe'. You should get another engineer to carry out the checks in the meantime.

AskAsk

Section62 said:

BadBehaviour said:

...

Also, the issue with saying no tenant present means then he gained entry to the property himself but that's not true and the tenant has it in writing that they didn't allow him to come in with the keys before the appointment was booked so he broke into the property then since he says no tenant was there and if they were not there no one could have opened the door for him.

Anyway you spin this, he would have done something wrong. 

"I rang the doorbell, someone opened the door.  I introduced myself and asked if they were the tenant.  They said 'No, but you can come in anyway'.  As the tenant didn't need to be present in person I went in and cracked on with the job."

If that^ is what the engineer says then can you prove otherwise?

exactly, it could be the tenants' relations or friends that were staying there and so let the engineer in.  just because the tenants weren't in, doesn't mean someone else wasn't there to let him in.  or it could be the landlord or someone that the landlord had asked to go there and let the engineer in.

AskAsk

subjecttocontract said:

If you feel a gas safety check hasn't been carried out properly then you should raise it with 'Gas Safe'. You should get another engineer to carry out the checks in the meantime.

this.  if you are disastisfied with a gas safe engineer then you need to raise it with gas safe, who is their regulator and in order to dispute a gas safe certificate, you will need to get another one that will state that the boiler is unsafe.

AskAsk

BikingBud said:

Unsure why the OP is getting a hard time over this.

A Gas SAFETY Check is there for a purpose, when clearly observable check items have not been acknowledged one should doubt the veracity of the check.

Does it matter if the OP is the landlord, tenant, tenant's great aunt Mavis if the SAFETY check was not completed to the required standard, supported by observable defects in the report, then the GSC provider should be called to task. Does it invalidate the check, does it mean the condition of the boiler safe or otherwise is not known, perhaps.

There may be some issues with access and claims of obstruction by the OP but they are entirely separate to the actual conduct and quality of the test.

If the OP wishes to raise an issue about the possibility of contesting any kind of re-possession activity based upon an erroneous check then I would offer that might be a different question entirely, but that has not yet been posed. 

because the OP wants to dispute the authenticity of the certificate but doesn't state why.  in order to dispute the authenticity of the certificate he needs proof and evidence and he is harping on about the boiler not fully working and the tenants not signing the certificate, which is all irrelevant to the gas safety certificate.

the fact of the matter is, the engineer was there, he hasn't prodcued the certificate without having entered the property.  the OP is not disputing this but about irrelevant tenants signing the certificate, which they do not need to do and that the boiler is not working properly, which is doesn't need to do for a gas safety certificate.  it just needs to be safe.  if it doesn't heat the house sufficiently or there is no hot water, that isn't a safety concern, but a maintenance issue.

BikingBud

You are surmising a lot!

We can only go on what the OP has stated and one thing is clear to the OP there is a CO monitor. Perhaps the fitter decided not to ask the OP to sign the certificate, they knew they had not completed the full GSC, we don't know.

If the GSC states the system is inoperative and that a full assessment could not be completed but the system is safe then that might be acceptable but we don't know and laying into the OP when there is so much uncertainty is excessive.