Avoid paying double fees for electrical COC when selling your house
Friday, December 9, 2022
Article by: Chrisjan van Heerden - MSc Property Studies, BCom Hons Marketing.
Selling a home is something that the average person doesn’t do very often – and many sellers end up spending more money than they have to, because they don’t know the basics. Spending double fees on electrician COC costs is one such a mistake that could be avoided.
If you sell a house, you are required by South African law to provide a certificate of compliance (COC) to the transferring attorney before transfer registers. When you call out an electrician for a COC, they need to inspect all installations to determine whether there are electrical issues that do not comply with the legal requirements. If the electrical installation is found to comply, the inspecting electrician issues the COC. However, if there are issues, it would have to be repaired before a COC could be given. The electrician would normally first quote for the repairs, as repairs are not included in the original inspection and COC fee.
And here is where uninformed property sellers then make a mistake: If they feel the quote for repairs is too high, they call another electrician to do a COC inspection and quote for repairs. By now, they have already contracted the first electrician for a callout, compliance inspection and COC certificate, and they are adding to their bill the second electrician’s callout and compliance inspection.
At this stage, it is also worth mentioning that the first electrician would not be able to issue the COC that you called him for, if the second electrician performs work on the electrical installation after his inspection – unless he does another inspection after the repairs and finds no non-compliance issues. One would generally save on fees if the first electrician who does the inspection, performs the required repairs and issues the certificate as well.
As professional estate agents, we generally recommend to sellers that they must choose an electrician that they trust and try to stick with their first choice to avoid double fees. Choose an electrician with who they already have a good working relationship. If they don’t know an electrician, it is a good idea to use one that their family or close friends know and trust.
We also recommend that sellers have their COC done before putting their house on the market. You will pay for electrical repairs anyway, so you might as well benefit from potential purchasers seeing a house where all light bulbs, plugs and switches work. Once a COC is issued, it is usually valid for two years or until there are changes to the electrical installation.
