Fitting or replacing a gas or oil boiler is work that has to be reported to a building control body somewhere along the line. It doesn't usually fall to you to do the reporting. It falls to whoever carried out the work, and how they do it depends on how they're registered.

Two routes, one outcome

An installer can notify a local authority building control body directly before or shortly after the work starts, and wait for that body to check and sign it off. Almost nobody does it that way for a boiler. Most gas and oil installers instead belong to a competent-person scheme, which lets a registered installer certify their own work as meeting the Building Regulations. The installer notifies the scheme, and the scheme notifies the local authority on their behalf. That's the self-certification route, and it's the one almost every domestic boiler job goes through.

What self-certification covers

Self-certification is the installer's confirmation that the finished job meets the requirements that apply to it. The scheme's role is to register that confirmation and pass it on. Whether the installer was right to sign it is a question for the installer, the scheme, or the building control body.

What you should end up holding, and by when

Your installer should notify the scheme and give you a copy of the compliance certificate within 30 days of finishing the work. That certificate confirms the job has been notified and self-certified under the Building Regulations. Keep it with the boiler's other paperwork, particularly if you're a landlord or plan to sell the property, since a buyer's solicitor will usually ask for it.

It's a separate document from a Gas Safe record of the work itself, and from anything the quote should have named before the job started, set out in what a boiler installation quote must name. What the Building Regulations require of the installation itself, as opposed to the paperwork around it, is set out from the start in what the building regulations require of a boiler installation.

A gas or oil boiler installation carried out under a competent-person scheme registration is self-certified, meaning the installer's scheme notifies building control on their behalf and sends you a certificate as proof the work was checked against the requirements that applied to the job. If it's been more than 30 days since the work finished and nothing has turned up, start with the person who did the work.

Ask the installer first

Ask which scheme they're registered with and on what date they notified the job. Schemes keep a record of every self-certified installation, so the installer should be able to tell you the notification date and reissue the certificate if it was lost in the post or never generated in the first place. Ask too whether the certificate is normally issued to them or sent to you directly, since that varies by scheme and can explain why it hasn't shown up.

Then ask their registration body

If the installer can't answer, or has gone quiet, contact the scheme itself. They hold the record independently of the installer and can confirm the notification date and reissue the certificate. For gas work, you can check an engineer's registration at gassaferegister.co.uk, the statutory register of gas engineers in Great Britain. That register confirms the engineer is entitled to work on gas appliances safely. It doesn't confirm this particular job was notified for building regulations purposes, and one document doesn't stand in for the other.

Where no competent-person scheme was involved at all, the job should have been notified to the local authority building control body directly, either before work started or as a building notice shortly after. If that didn't happen, the building control body is still the right place to ask, and they can advise what evidence of compliance can be obtained after the fact.

Why it matters when you sell or let the home

The certificate is your record that the installation was checked against the efficiency and system requirements that applied at the time, including which edition of Approved Document L applied to the job. A buyer's solicitor or a prospective tenant may ask to see it, and without it you're left trying to reconstruct what was done and when. It's easier to keep it with the rest of the paperwork for the house than to chase it up years later. If you're still waiting on a quote and want to check what it should name against the current rules, What a Boiler Installation Quote Must Name Under the Building Regulations sets that out line by line.