Quicker by pigeon?

Have you got your EPC yet?

Have you got it in your hot little hand? Safely filed until 2018? Property Sparrow is embarrassed to say that she hasn’t.

She ordered one on 17 September in time for a new tenancy, duly sent off her cheque and filled in the company’s form with all the details of the address and told them to borrow the key from her Lettings Agent. A month later she is still waiting to receive the certificate.

Without thinking about it very hard, she ordered an EPC from a company who describe themselves as ‘providing a local solution’ and who have received ‘excellent customer feedback.’ She should have realised that these claims were not quite right when she received a letter from the company asking her to forward a cheque in advance of the survey. She rang to tell them that she’d already sent one but had not received a receipt. Their letter contained spelling mistakes in the first two lines of her home address and, more importantly, another spelling mistake in the first line of the address to be surveyed.

Three days later she got home from work to a message on 1571 at 11.09AM from Richard: ‘I am standing outside your property. Are you coming round with the key? It’s your EPC.’ Property Sparrow finds this sort of thing very irritating.

Property Sparrow’s Lettings Agency has told her that in the end Richard did turn up at their office and as far as they are concerned the EPC survey has been done.

She then expected to receive a couple of copies of the certificate in the post and would have been quite happy filing one and sending the other off to her Lettings Agency to give to the new tenant. Perhaps she expects too much.

On 13 October she rang the EPC company again to find out where it is. She enjoyed an argument with Christine who insisted on using Property Sparrow’s first name over and over again. Christine attempted to explain that the company has an online system and so what Property Sparrow should have done is accessed the system and printed off her own certificate. Property Sparrow told her that she hadn’t been told how and when to do this, that she couldn’t be bothered to get the certificate this way and even if she wanted to print it off herself she had no idea what password to use. She asked Christine to simply print off a couple of copies and post them. Christine said she couldn’t possibly do this as if clients want ‘hard copies of the certificate’ their arrangements are to send them off to be printed and bound and this would cost Property Sparrow £15.75, payable in advance.

She is still waiting for the post and the password.

Property Sparrow’s solution: bring back pigeon post and use it in your little battles. In 1815 Nathan Rothschild made a killing on the stockmarket when a pigeon brought him early news of Napoleon’s defeat. Used for centuries as an efficient, cheap, environmentally friendly and reliable means of sending documents from one person to another. Ideal for EPCs.