Lost Your FENSA Certificate? How to Get a Replacement

Since April 2002, replacing windows or external doors in England and Wales has been controlled work under the Building Regulations. An installer registered with a competent person scheme can self-certify it.

FENSA is the best-known scheme, but others exist, such as Certass. Each issues its own certificate, so the paperwork you are looking for may not say FENSA at all.

• Check the FENSA website, which lets you search for a certificate by address and order a copy.
• If nothing is found, ask the original installer which scheme they used.
• Contact that scheme directly, since certificates are only held by the scheme that issued them.

Have the property address and the approximate installation date ready. A small fee is usually charged for a replacement.

Sometimes the installer was not registered, or never notified the work. In that case, check with your council's building control team whether they hold any record of it.

If there is no record at all, the usual options are a retrospective approval from the council, or building regulations indemnity insurance. Speak to your conveyancer before contacting the council, since that can affect whether insurance is available.

Window certificates are easy to lose because the work is often done years before a sale. Logging the job on Propvio with the certificate attached means it is there when a buyer asks.

If the installer is on Propvio, they can confirm the job, which shows the buyer who actually did the work.