Heating and selling house Information, help and advice on many gas related subjects from gas fires to domestic appliances

[andrew wood]

Hi everyone
This is my first post on here and I think I could be in trouble.
We DIY fitted a central heating system last Winter and everything is fine.
Now we come to sell the house and we are told the solicitor requires a Compliance Certificate which we do not have and the installation needs to be 'signed off' but we do not know how.
How can we get around this.
We had a safety check done by a CORGI registered engineer and all is ok, we thought this was all we needed.
This has also applied to the electrical installation which again we had tested by an NICEIC engineer and all is ok, but not according to solicitors they need the papers again.
So we cannot sell until we have this certificate. Please help We're panicking
Many thanks
ANDY

[htg engineer]

That's what happens when you do DIY gas work, and you wont get anyone to sign it off saying they'd installed it incase anything is wrong or goes wrong.

I've read posts on here about people that say it is not illegal to carry out DIY gas work in your own home - if it wasn't why would a solicitor be so bothered about whether it was a DIY job or not ?

The same will happen to them if/when they come to sell their house.

[andrew wood]

Thanks for the reply.
It looks like we made a major mistake by the sound of it.
Our first time at doing up a house and we are in trouble.
The way I understood it was that the work could be inspected, a safety certificate given and 'signed off' by a CORGI engineer - obviously this is not the case.
So PLEASE what do we do / where do we go from here.
Thanks
ANDY

[htg engineer]

I don't know much about HIPS, I know if your heating was installed before April 1st 2005, all you need is a recent gas safety certificate which is provide for an annual gas service.

All I would suggest is talking to your solicitor and explain the situation and see what solution they can offer. If you don't want to tell them it was a DIY job, you could say it was a friend of a friend and you didn't get any certification or CORGI ID number. Maybe a gas safety certificate will suffice.

Alternatively get your local CORGI engineer out and see if he would be willing to sign off the installation as safe and issue the relevant certification.

Depending on the manufacturer the boiler would have at least one year warranty if fitted by a CORGI registered installer, but without the certification you don't have any warranty - may be another problem if the buyer of the house was to ask about this.