Intruder Alarm, Certificate of Conformance, EN 50131

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cologneboy

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Hello there,

got in late January 2008 intruder alarm installed into our pre-wired house at a cost of € 1100,- (inclusive VAT).
Did not have any experience in this area and was quite happy with the service.
While shopping around for a new house insurance in November I came accross several insurers offering a rebate on the above.

We got on to the crowd that had installed it in the first place. Same office location, same contact details, pretty much same company logo, slightly changed company name.
Explained the situation and wanted them to issue me with such certificate. They agreed and send they would send somebody out as they had changed company logo to exchange panel carrying logo.

The guy came out, same who initially installed it. Did exchange outside panel, new company logo on internal device and checked, after being tol we did not want a system check, the system. In total he stayed 40 minutes. He the presented a bill for €170,-.
I refused to pay and he told me he would get his boss in touch. He arrived today and spoke about PSA, impossible for previous company to facilitate with such certificate, he mentioned legislative changes coming into effect from the 1.8.2008.

Any advice from anybody?

I'm still reluctant to pay them anything on the basis a) I feel they should have provided us with the certificate in January in the first place. b) I asked them for the certificate, they agreed and did not mention any fee, but wanted to change their own company logo.

Thanking you in advance,


cologneboy
 
The mentioned legislative changes coming into effect from the 1.8.2008 are correct, however, your insurance company is only looking for a certificate to say the system conforms to EN 50131 this has nothing to do with being PSA licenced.
Regardless of when the system was installed or who installed it . If this company is PSA licenced & NSAI registered then they can certify any installation.
The fact that you are an existing customer they should not be charging you for this call as all installations should be certified anyway. It would appear to be a bit of a rip off. A 40 minute call should not be €170, was anything changed?
Another thing... If it was installed correctly in the first place it should not take 40 minutes to ensure it is up to the standard. There is something just not quite right here. I would recommend do not pay this & get a reputable compant to certify it for you.
 
also every alarm company provides a 12 warrenty with every install,there might be a standard call out charge but there is no way it should come to that much
 
Colm,

could you explain to me what the legislative changes were in moredetail? Did those effect the ability for an intruder alarm provider to facilitate anycustomer with a certificate? That's what the guy from the company is claiming.

I still think, even if this was the case, the old company seemed to have had a revamp since January. This is supported by the fact when we ent back to the companies office the guys are now in it immediately accepted our notion of going back to the initial company. In addition, as mentioned the very same guy came out to give us the certificate. Any thoughts on this?

If I would go further and wanting to complain about this companybased on the fact that they are virtually the same, any idea how I would go about this?

Thanking you,

cologneboy
 
Without getting into legal terminology the legislative changes basically state that all installation company's must be licenced by the PSA. The only reason why he would not have been able to facilitate you prior to that would have been because he was not NSAI licenced.
Regardless of that his work should have been up to standard .
It should not have taken 40 minutes to sort & you should not have to pay €170.
 
There was no change to legislation in August 2008. The requirement to have a license from the Private Security Authority (PSA) before installing intruder alarms came into force in August 2006.
One of the requirements for an installer to get a license is that they are certifified by one of five certification bodies (e.g. EQA, MSC, NSAI, SSAIB). One of the requirments of all the certification bodies is that the installer must install every alarm to the EN 50131 standard and must issue a certificate for each installation.
Check on the PSA website to ensure the installer has a license (if not, you can report them). If they do have a license, you can ask the PSA to pass on your complaint to the certification body who issued them a certificate.
Provided they were operating legally back in January (i.e. had certification and a PSA license at that time), the certification body can insist they issue a certificate or risk lousing there certification (and by extension their PSA license).
 
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