Do sellers provide the gas and electricity safety certificate?

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Answer

As a Vendor, you are not required by law to provide the purchaser with a Gas Safety Certificate or an Electrical Safety Certificate. You are required to provide a Gas Safety Certificate if you intend to let the property and must do this annually.

The NICEIC recommend 10 yearly inspections of all domestic wiring installations or upon change of ownership whichever occurs sooner, but the onus for this is usually placed on the buyer not the seller and is usually a recommendation made in most Homebuyer & Building Survey reports. So the purchaser may bounce it back to the seller!

If there have been any alterations or additions to the electrical installation since January 1^st 2005, the seller must however obtain a Part P Building Regulation Certificate and this should be passed to the purchaser. All electrical alterations, even minor works, are now covered by Part P and must be either certified by the installing electrician or inspected and approved by Building Control at the Local Authority. 

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Gavin Scott-Brooker

Brooker & Co

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