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A plumbing CoC in Brackenfell is the water certificate the City of Cape Town wants from every seller before transfer. We inspect, hand you the defect list as its own document, and quote any repairs separately. Nothing on the list has to be fixed by us.
Tell us the address and your transfer date. We will give you an inspection price in writing before anyone visits.
The certificate confirms the water installation meets the national building regulations and the City’s Water By-law. In practice that means walking through these six areas of the property.
Safety valve, pressure control valve, vacuum breakers, the overflow run to outside and the drip tray. Most of what can go wrong on a certificate lives here.
Can the private stoptap be found, reached and turned? Does the meter register, with nothing feeding the house around it?
Every tap closed and watched, every cistern listened to. A slow drip or a cistern that never quite stops filling is a defect.
Waste fittings trapped and vented properly, gullies above ground level and not taking water they should not be taking.
Roof downpipes and paving drains must go to stormwater, not the sewer. A downpipe tied into a gully is a common find.
Boreholes, well-points, rainwater tanks and grey water: labelled, physically separate from the municipal supply and protected against backflow.
Section 14 of the City of Cape Town’s Water By-law puts the duty on the seller: before transfer, submit a certificate of compliance from a registered plumber confirming the water installation conforms to the building regulations and the by-law. The form itself is prescribed, and it goes to the City before the conveyancer can register the transfer.
That creates an awkward moment. The person who finds the defects is usually the person who then quotes to fix them, and the seller is often working to a registration date that is already set. The list and the invoice arrive together, and there is very little room to ask whether every item on it really needed doing.
So we split the work in two. The inspection is priced on its own. You receive the defect list as a standalone document: what failed, where it is, and which part of the by-law or the building regulations it fails against. The repair quote is a separate page, and you are free to take the list to any registered plumber you like.
Section 14(3) also makes a false certificate a matter for prosecution. That is why we open the geyser cupboard, run every tap and watch the meter rather than signing from the front door. It is slower, and it protects the seller, the buyer and whoever signs the form.
If you are selling in the next year, book the inspection early. Found in March, a missing vacuum breaker is a small repair. Found three days before registration, the same part becomes a deadline.
The defect list is yours whether or not we do the repairs.
Geyser, meter, taps, cisterns, gullies and downpipes checked in person.
Each defect names the fitting, its location and what it fails against.
If repairs are done by someone else, the return visit fee is known in advance.
The inspection is a fixed fee for a standard house, quoted in writing before we visit, with flats and larger properties quoted on the address. Any repairs are priced separately and only after you have seen the defect list. The current inspection fee is on the plumber prices page.
The seller. Section 14(1) of the Water By-law says the seller must submit it before transfer. Buyers sometimes ask for a check before making an offer, which is a separate, optional inspection.
No. The electrical certificate, the gas certificate and the water certificate are three different documents issued by three different kinds of registered practitioner. If the house has gas, see our gas installation page.
You get a written list of each defect and where it is. Once the items are put right, by us or by any registered plumber, the installation is checked again and the certificate issued. A fail is a list of jobs, not a verdict on the house.
No. The list is yours. If another plumber does the work, we charge only the re-inspection fee we quoted you at the start.
Geyser safety fittings, dripping taps, cisterns that keep running, a stoptap nobody can find, and roof water going into the sewer. Our geyser repair page covers the valves in more detail.
A standard house takes one visit. Larger properties, flats on the same erf and anything with a borehole or rainwater system take longer, and we will tell you how long when we quote.
Often, yes. If the defects are small and you approve the separate repair quote on the spot, the repairs and the re-check can happen in one visit.
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Selling in Brackenfell, Kuils River or Kraaifontein? Send the address and your registration date and we will price the inspection in writing.
