Electrical CoC

[Quintrix]

Advice appreciated.

Bought a property some time ago and suspect the COC is not 100% legal and may leave me out of pocket in future.

How long is a COC valid for and what are my options?

If there are issues, do I take it up with seller or issuer of COC?

Some questionable issues:
1. Some trips may have lights and plugs on same circuit(not marked as such. Only marked as lights or as plugs)
2. Have a room at back (seperate from main property) that seems to be fed via standard 3core (extention lead) via underground pipe, directly to plugs and lights in room. Not going to a seperate DB. This if fed from one of the trips marked as lights or plugs.

 

[Lupus]

Advice appreciated.

Bought a property some time ago and suspect the COC is not 100% legal and may leave me out of pocket in future.

How long is a COC valid for and what are my options?

If there are issues, do I take it up with seller or issuer of COC?

Some questionable issues:
1. Some trips may have lights and plugs on same circuit(not marked as such. Only marked as lights or as plugs)
2. Have a room at back (seperate from main property) that seems to be fed via standard 3core (extention lead) via underground pipe, directly to plugs and lights in room. Not going to a seperate DB. This if fed from one of the trips marked as lights or plugs.

CoC is 2 years

 

[Former member 61586]

Advice appreciated.

Bought a property some time ago and suspect the COC is not 100% legal and may leave me out of pocket in future.

How long is a COC valid for and what are my options?

If there are issues, do I take it up with seller or issuer of COC?

Some questionable issues:
1. Some trips may have lights and plugs on same circuit(not marked as such. Only marked as lights or as plugs)
2. Have a room at back (seperate from main property) that seems to be fed via standard 3core (extention lead) via underground pipe, directly to plugs and lights in room. Not going to a seperate DB. This if fed from one of the trips marked as lights or plugs.

Had this exact same problem. Mine was bought. Literally a fraud (electrician doesnt exist). Owners unfortunately emigrated to Australia. Has thus far cost me R40k to fix. Firstly try to hold the electrician accountable should the electrician be legit and exist. If that fails, you need to sue the previous owners. All this will cost you thousands in lawyers fees though. So you need to decide whether to throw good money after bad.

The lesson here is, and I learnt this the fcking hard way, is to invest a few thousand in these companies that do professional home inspections before signing that offer to purchase. If the owners have other offers and can't wait for the results, walk away. One thing about nice dream houses, there will always be one for you.

 

[Geoff.D]

Anything plugged into a wall socket is automatically excluded from a CoC.
Most CoCs are not worth the paper they are written on.
Trying to get recourse is a waste of time, just fix the things you find.

 

[Grouter]

And then you get the old-timers - sparkies from another age, in their 60's and even 70's and still doing top-quality work.
One of these guys moved our DB for us, and had to issue a COC afterwards for the whole house.
He opened up sockets, tested EVERYTHING, made me replace a light switch because he didn't like the "feel" of the switch, went in the roof and insisted on more clips on some of the lighting cables, and even measured the distance from a kitchen socket to the gas stove WITH A MEASURING TAPE. He spent two hours tracing an earth fault in my wendy house and fixed it.
Only after nearly a day of checks did he issue his COC.
Nice guy!

 

[geezer]

CoC is 2 years

Not according to this.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT ELECTRICAL CERTIFICATES OF COMPLIANCE – AND THE ANSWERS | ECASA

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT ELECTRICAL CERTIFICATES OF COMPLIANCE – AND THE ANSWERS The most frequently asked questions received by the ECA are from homeowners and centre around the electrical Ce

ecasa.co.za

"How long is an electrical Certificate of Compliance (CoC) valid for?

No mention is made in legislation regarding the expiry or lapse of the CoC; it remains valid for what it has been issued for. Confusion arises due to the Electrical Installation regulations stating in Regulation 7(5) Subject to the provisions of section 10(4) of the Act, the user or lessor may not allow a change of ownership if the certificate of compliance is older than two years. A CoC remains valid for the lifetime of an installation but excludes maintenance items, and if any alterations have been done to the electrical installation, the owner/lessor must obtain a supplementary CoC according to clause 7(4) which states: Where any addition or alteration has been effected to an electrical installation for which a certificate of compliance was previously issued, the user or lessor of such electrical installation shall obtain a certificate of compliance for at least the addition or alteration."

 

[Smokey mcpot]

Depends on how long “some time ago is”. I would contact the previous owner and electrical company. If the electrical company did in fact do work give them a chance to fix up. If you don’t get any help then take it further.

last year my client bought a place and asked me to change some light switches and plug points. Of course we spotted a few problems which did not pass. I took photos and sent them off to her before fixing up. She then contacted the electrical company and sent them photos. He offered to come out and repair but we’d already fixed it. He was awesome and just asked her to send the bill and he’d cover it. At the time I did not plan on billing her (as he home was also my holiday house every time 3 months when she’s out in Germany), but she insisted I charge my regular rates as they were paid to do these things.

the difference however is that she had me start renovating on the day the transfer went through which was shortly after the coc was issued. So other electrical companies might be a bit full of crap if some time has passed.
Also there is a company who’s name sounds like “inspection” that did our place years ago. They did a terrible job not knowing that I know these things. Tried quoting for a lot of things which were not wrong. When I eventually called the owner he was also being a real **** about it. So watch our for them as they’re quite popular