FENSA Certificates

[NightlyBye]

Due to go in to solicitor tomorrow to sign paperwork for my sale. The completion date is the 12th (huzzah!). Solicitor has asked me to bring in the FENSA certificate. I do not have this, and after checking the FENSA site, there appears to be no record of my property on here to order a new certificate. I kept all the documentation from when I bought the house, and definitely didn't get any paperwork about this. The Solicitor is saying that they can do me Indemnity Insurance to cover this. Is this necessary? Having a bit of a panic right now.

It depends if FENSA existed when the double glazing was put in surely? FENSA was set up in 2002, so if the double glazing was installed prior to that, then you won't have a certificate, and cannot reasonably be expected to provide one.

I think you'll probably need an indemnity policy to cover it. Shouldn't be too expensive

www.samconveyancing.co.uk/news/conveyancing/no-fensa-certificate-for-windows-can-you-get-one-retrospectively-5530#none

Your Solicitor really should give you a bit more context, the above link will be helpful.

It doesn’t have to be a fensa certificate - as long as you had buildings regs sign off for whatever it was you are fine!

Fensa is simply self certification of buildings regs compliance...they’ve done very clever marketing to convince everyone its needed but it’s only if you don’t have buildings regs sign off from elsewhere

Fensa indemnity policies are very common and pretty cheap.

Thanks for the replies!
The windows were put in in 2012.

The Solicitor gave me no context at all, just said that I needed to provide this thing I'd never heard of. Truly helpful at this stage of selling! I guess that I will have to pay for the Indemnity then. I wonder if the people I bought this house off would have had to take out a Policy for this too.

Is this the solicitor who acted when you bought? Because they should have insisted on a certificate or insurance policy...

Yes you’ll need an indemnity policy but it’s no big deal, will probably cost you about £49 at a guess.

No, its a different Solicitor.

I think i'm just panicking as its been a long few months and to be hit with this in the final week has freaked me out. I will not be recommending this firm to anyone- their communication has been dreadful throughout.

There's another certification route called Certass - worth checking whether they have a record at all. Fensa is better known but they amount to the same thing.

Has the buyers' solicitor asked for the Fensa certificate? I'd be asking that because if they haven't raised it as an issue I wouldn't worry about it.

We recently had new windows put in and were told in writing that we would get a Fensa cert. A month on and I found out by calling Fensa that our window bloke had not registered our new windows with them. So I had to ring the guy again. I finally got my cert another month later. Hard work but worth it because it could delay any sale

We had similar- some window work under FENSA and some front door/porch stuff under CERTASS. I worked out what we needed by looking at my councils online building and planning portal, there was a "competent person certification" section, and it told us who signed off with which cert.

ask the solicitor, the expert to whom you are paying money, for guidance from his regular experience of buying and selling.

lazy sod.

completion Friday week with no exchange yet? How will you organise post redirect, broadband and phone and removals?

I'm just about to go into town and meet with the Solicitor. Today is a very fraught day as I'm waiting on the call to say I can collect the keys for next property today too! Thankfully removals and redirect etc are all sorted for that property.

Im hoping that youre calling the Solicitor a lazy sod, and not me?

Thanks for all your replies. The Solicitor has suggested small fee for building regs to cover this so its all sorted.

yes, I did mean the solicitor! you pay for advice and help and they should give it, they sell.and buy houses every day.