Notifications – why 14 days?

To ensure HETAS’ ongoing scheme compliance, we must ensure we comply with these conditions of authorisation. Each year we are subject to an audit, undertaken by UKAS. The audit, much like our inspections of your installation work, is to ensure we comply with the conditions; these range from assessing applicants as technically competent against agreed minimum competence requirements, ensure that its registrants’ competencies are kept up to date, for example as a result of changes to the Building Regulations and/or BS/EN standards or technical approvals, establish and publish scheme rules, including its application and certification processes and fee structure and to provide ongoing technical help and advice to registrants as required. In total there are 21 conditions that all Competent Person Schemes, including HETAS, must comply with. 

Competent person scheme operators and installers must also follow certain rules to comply with the UK building regulations. For the notification of installations that fall under the remit of the competent person scheme, there are two key conditions that must be  adhered to. 

Firstly, HETAS is required to take measures to ensure that it is notified by registrants of all completed work within the scope of the scheme and required by Building Regulations to forward to the relevant consumers a certificate of Building Regulations compliance. To do this, HETAS has documented systems in place to ensure that registrants are notifying all jobs carried out under the scheme, in line with regulation 20 of the Building Regulations 2010. Additionally, HETAS must take measures to ensure that this information is forwarded to the relevant local authority in the format agreed with the Local Authority Building Control (LABC).

HETAS (and every other competent person scheme) should receive notifications well within time to ensure it meets the 30-calendar day deadline required by the Building Regulations for transfer of information to the local authority and for the homeowner to receive their compliance certificate. To enable HETAS to submit your notification to the relevant LABC along with a certificate to the homeowner, notifications must be submitted to us within 14 calendar days of completion of the installation. When notifying online, this is a seven-day extension on the previous 7 days which was in place for paper-based notifications.  

With an all-new notification system in place, it is now even easier for HETAS installers to notify every installation on time and even schedule your installation notifications in advance, making use of the unsubmitted notifications facility. You can then easily complete the notification as soon as you’ve completed your work. You’ll receive a notification ID instantly and can use this as evidence that the installation has been successfully notified to HETAS. You will also receive an email confirmation of each notification submitted. We will take care of the rest for you. The updated notification system will now automatically prevent installations older than 14 days from being submitted. We have introduced this measure so we can evidence to UKAS our steps to ensuring both our and your commitment to complying with the Building Regulations. 

We also understand that there are times when customers may want to withhold payment until completion of the installation, including paperwork. Please note that delaying the notification of the installation to secure payment must not prevent compliance with the Building Regulations requirement. The HETAS website has guidance and support documents to help you in ensuring prompt payment, including contract guidance, invoicing, and debt recovery support from Prompt Payer when you are not paid on time. Prompt Payer is an ethical debt recovery service which is included as part of your HETAS registration. 

Also available on the HETAS Technical Hub are a variety of support documents, including:  

• Risk Assessments – and guidance on their use 
• Method Statements 
• Handling Customer Complaints 
• Complaints procedures and forms 
• Quotation and contract templates 
• Quotation and servicing templates 
• Surveyor pre-installation checklist 
• Customer contract information and guidance