Fenestration certificate

[Homer2911]

If I fit my own upvc replacement windows, obviously I will not have a fenestration certificate. What are the implications of this?

[Phil L]

It's a FENSA certificate you need, and the implications are that when you come to sell the house, you will need to supply a FENSA certificate or the buyer (or more acurately his solicitor) will push for a drop in price so as to pay for removal and fitting of windows by a FESA registered company.

[Peter Crosland]

You will need to get them inspected by the local council building control. Assuming they are satisfied you have met all the rules they will certify it. Just make sure you fully understand all the rules before buying and fitting the windows.

Peter Crosland

[The Natural Philosopher]

Actually no. The solicitor uses the lack of FENSA certificate to extract more money writing letters to you demanding them.

Say 'I have no certificate' and the buyer has two choices: Buy the house or f*ck off.

[Edward W. Thompson]

You are of course completely correct. On the subject of FENSA, this is a 'bogus' organization. FENSA registration attests to the windows/doors meeting the applicable Building Regs and is supposed to ensure that the windows and doors are fitted correctly by a certified contractor. Unfortunately the individuals who fit the windows or doors do not need to be qualified in any way and the quality of the finished product is a matter of chance. FENSA contractors are not required to have a Quality Assurance program, so there is no independent/arms length inspection after fitting i.e. no Quality Control.

I had to have the manufacturer of a door come to refit a door fitted by a FENSA registered contractor before it was satisfactory. Of course FENSA had supplied me with the requisite certificate attesting to the doors being supplied and fitted according to the Regulations despite the door leaking around its seals!

Complaints to both FENSA and to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister got me absolutely nowhere. Why am I surprised?

[Stuart Noble]

For the sake of £100 inspection fee you might as well do what Fatty DPM says. It's only another tax

[.]

[aboleth]

Doesn't the regulation apply to windows fitted after 2002? If you intend to stay for a few years, you could just forget when you did them, it was bound to have been around 2001 in that case.

. wrote:

[Peter Crosland]

The glass is date marked.

Peter Crosland

[Ian_m]

A mate fitted his own after it was cheaper to replace than repair a damaged window (both broken pain and frame broken). Got the unit from B&Q, fitted using approved fixing (frame fixings ?), filled gaps with foam but didn't attach the final PVC edging covering up all the expanding foam and fixings, called council, bod came out next day'ish, looked at glass type, opener type, method of fixing and lack of gas fires, took £62 (I think) and issued a certificate later. Easy peasy.

[Derek ^]

My DG was fitted in 1990 but I now have a few failed units, can't I replace them myself anymore?

DG

[Phil L]

Of course, I'm only going off experience of 3 house sales in the past 12 months, none of them had FENSA certs, all of them were eventually reduced by a few thousand because of this, although building control did pass one of them. We are talking about solicitors here don't forget...there only needs to be a cracked paving slab on the front path for them to try and get the price reduced

[Tony Bryer]

What I think is being said is that if you haven't got a FENSA certificate the buyer will use this as a bargaining card. As with all other offers brought down for valid or spurious reasons you, as the seller, can choose to accept or not. Somehow I suspect that in 90% of cases if you offer to have the windows replaced pre-sale with FENSA-approved ones (8 for £1495, this month only!) and leave the price as is the buyer may suddenly decide that it's no so important after all.

[Tony Bryer]

The units or the windows? Yes to the former; the latter needs Building Control approval or to be done by a FENSA company. If you are going to sell in the foreseeable future then not getting one of these may cost you more than it saves.

[.]

translation: one was granted retrospective BC, the others were really /so/ bad they had to be re-done. (have you really attempted to sell three sub standard houses ?)

no, we're talking about surveyors.

[.]

[Derek ^]

No just to replace the failed DG units with replacements.

Everything had Planning Permission /BCO approval in 1990, and we have the Docs. to prove it.

DG

[Brian Sharrock]

snip

Ah C'mon! ... You didn't really expect the DPM to be interested in your door when he's pre-occupied with mistress (John Humphreys couldn't get him to _deny_ that he's had more than one), Dornwywood, ranches ( there's more than one type of cowboy he's interested in self-regulating, domes, gambling etc. etc. .... Oh, and running the country when Tone's off on a freebie ... did you?

[geoffr]

What normally happens in these situation is that seller offers buyer an indemnity policy to protect buyer from "risk" of council coming along after he has purchased and saying these all need to be replaced as do not meet current regs. However these policies are basically a con as they only cost between =A320 and =A330 as there is virtually no chance of this happening and its, in effect, money for old rope for the insurance companies as they will never have to pay out

In any event no one really cares whether windows were made and installed to current regs as long as they look ok.

[.]

you obviously don't understand the regs.