Gas Hob Installation Certificate

Adam9W · 4 August 2018 at 9:16AM

Hi All,

I'm after some advice as we're currently in the middle of selling our house and have been asked by my solicitor to provide a gas safe installation certificate for the gas hob (and electric oven - which I don't understand as it's electric!).

As some background, we bought the house from new in November 2011 and were never given these certificates. I've chased up with the contractor who installed, as well as Gas Safe Register and it seems these were never registered to the property.

I don't want to delay our sale, so want to understand what the stance is on this and what our options are?

- I have been told we may need to pay an indemnity insurance. Is absolutely required, and how much could it cost?

- Considering these documents can't be produced by the house builder, and were never given to us as part of our purchase, how can we be expected to provide these or be held responsible for them?

- I have recently had an up to date Gas Safety inspection and provided the Gas Safe Certificate, why would this not be sufficient to represent the system being safe?

Really appreciate any help on this one, as our solicitors have been very vague and aren't able to answer any questions I ask.

Thank you

Doozergirl · 4 August 2018 at 9:45AM

This is so frustrating. Solicitors seem to have no idea. Especially this one.

Everything will have been covered by building control on the entire house. There would be no separate certificates here and there. It was a new house, everything comes under one new house sign off!

Is this request on some sort of generic questions list? It's irrelevant.

Adam9W · 4 August 2018 at 10:23AM

Doozergirl wrote: »

This is so frustrating. Solicitors seem to have no idea. Especially this one.

Everything will have been covered by building control on the entire house. There would be no separate certificates here and there. It was a new house, everything comes under one new house sign off!

Is this request on some sort of generic questions list? It's irrelevant.

This is what I would have originally thought too. I've had particular difficulty with this solicitor and don't have much faith in their ability or knowledge but it's too far down the line to now change.

As far as I understand, it's legal requirement for gas fires and boilers to have the installation certificate registered with Gas Safe (which I have), but not for the hob.

Gillybean · 4 August 2018 at 10:27AM

Hobs do not have any installations certificate. Even if you decided to pay for a gas safety certificate, they would not test the hob, only fires and boilers. I guess the only thing you could ask an engineer to do would be to come and look at it, make sure it!!!8217;s in working order and write a statement on their invoice to that effect.

We get a lot of people contacting our firm about this. It!!!8217;s so annoying, why can!!!8217;t solicitors understand that such a thing does not exist!

bxboards · 4 August 2018 at 10:35AM

I was selling a house last year and the buyer's solicitor kept asking for a gas safety certificate for a solid fuel fire.

I felt they were working to a check list - for example on the property seller form, you have a question about Japanese knotweed. The buyer's solicitor sent a set of parallel questions asking if I knew of any knotweed within a 1 mile radius and nonsense about gas safety checks for solid fuel.

In the end I got so fed up with the nonsense, I told the buyers solicitor to cut the crap, and complete or withdraw. They completed.

I suspect they work to check lists especially if you are dealing for a junior conveyancer or the other end.

Adam9W · 4 August 2018 at 10:39AM

Gillybean wrote: »

Hobs do not have any installations certificate. Even if you decided to pay for a gas safety certificate, they would not test the hob, only fires and boilers. I guess the only thing you could ask an engineer to do would be to come and look at it, make sure it!!!8217;s in working order and write a statement on their invoice to that effect.

We get a lot of people contacting our firm about this. It!!!8217;s so annoying, why can!!!8217;t solicitors understand that such a thing does not exist!

Thanks Gillybean,

I actually had British Gas inspect the hob as part of the Gas Safety Inspection so we've got that evidence too.

The most frustrating part about this is we provide information to solicitors in a matter of hours from request, and then it takes 2-3 weeks for them to come back and ask for more / state that something is missing.

We even had the original installation report which shows the test being completed, along with installers name, pressures and ticked box to show the appliance is commissioned and safe to use!

It feels we're being dragged through to provide something that doesn't exist and isn't needed, when ultimately our solicitor doesn't even know what we need to provide to the buyer's solicitor :mad:

Adam9W · 4 August 2018 at 10:43AM

bxboards wrote: »

I was selling a house last year and the buyer's solicitor kept asking for a gas safety certificate for a solid fuel fire.

I felt they were working to a check list - for example on the property seller form, you have a question about Japanese knotweed. The buyer's solicitor sent a set of parallel questions asking if I knew of any knotweed within a 1 mile radius and nonsense about gas safety checks for solid fuel.

In the end I got so fed up with the nonsense, I told the buyers solicitor to cut the crap, and complete or withdraw. They completed.

I suspect they work to check lists especially if you are dealing for a junior conveyancer or the other end.

Agree, I think this is what's happening. The junior is particularly un-knowledgable as well from what I've experienced.

I've actually told her on a number of occasions that the oven is electric, and she keeps asking for the gas safe certificate!

I think from Monday I'll stand my ground and challenge. Even ask to speak to the buyers solicitor to bring some clarity to the situation if needed.

AnotherJoe · 4 August 2018 at 11:04AM

Adam9W wrote: »

Agree, I think this is what's happening. The junior is particularly un-knowledgable as well from what I've experienced.

I've actually told her on a number of occasions that the oven is electric, and she keeps asking for the gas safe certificate!

Raise it to her manager.

fezster · 4 August 2018 at 11:23AM

In my experience with useless solicitors who take weeks to respond, the best way to move things forward is to have direct contact with the buyer/seller. This way, issues such as this (i.e. non-issues) can quickly be discussed in a short phone call, and then each side can go back to their respective solicitors and ensure they understand how to proceed further.

Unless it is an issue which genuinely requires resolving (for example, to satisfy a lender), this is usually the quickest way to bypass the infuriatingly slow pace at which solicitors (or more likely conveyancers) work at, because they have a large case load and keep submitting useless questions which then results in your case being put to the back of the pile "awaiting a response".

Adam9W · 6 August 2018 at 11:23AM

Thank you all for your advice. I'm going to push it a bit further this week and see if we can get some movement. It seems that it's more a poor admin process that's slowing things down.

Out of interest, if I do cave and just decide to pay the indemnity insurance to move things along, does anyone know how much that might be for a gas hob?

Thanks

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Gas Hob Installation Certificate

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