Changes, cancellations & refunds

Cancelling your booking

We do not offer free cancellation. When you book, an assessor's time is reserved for you and other work is turned away, so cancellations are handled as follows:

• Within 4 hours of booking — full refund. Booked by mistake, wrong property, changed your mind straight away? Tell us within 4 hours and you get every penny back, no questions asked.
• From 4 hours after booking until 8 hours before your appointment — refund less £35. We return the balance to your card. The £35 covers the slot reserved for you and the administration of arranging and unwinding the visit.
• Inside the final 8 hours — non-refundable. At that point the slot cannot be filled and your assessor is already routed for the day. We will always move your appointment to another date free of charge instead, so you keep the assessment you paid for rather than losing it.

If you think a charge has been applied unfairly — you were ill, there was a bereavement, the property became inaccessible through no fault of yours — tell us. We look at these individually and we would rather keep a customer than keep £35.

Your legal right to cancel

Because you booked online, the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you 14 days from booking to cancel. Nothing on this page removes that right.

When you book you ask us to start straight away — that is what the tick box on the booking form confirms — because most people want their certificate quickly. Where you exercise your statutory right to cancel before the assessment has taken place, we may keep an amount reflecting what has already been provided; that is what the £35 charge above represents, and it is a genuine estimate of our costs rather than a penalty. Once the assessment has actually been carried out, the service is complete and the right to cancel no longer applies, because the certificate has been produced and lodged.

If we cannot cover your property

If your postcode falls outside the area we can reach, we will tell you as soon as we see the booking and refund you in full immediately — no charge of any kind. You never need to chase us for this.

If we have to cancel or move your appointment

If we cancel, or cannot attend at the agreed time for any reason of ours, you choose: a new slot at no cost, or a full refund including any charge already taken. Our own delays are never charged to you.

If nobody is home

If the assessor arrives at the agreed time and cannot get in, that counts as a missed appointment and the £35 charge applies, because the visit has been made. We will contact you to rearrange the rest of the assessment. Telling us in advance — even an hour before — means we can move you instead, free of charge.

If you are not happy with the assessment

Tell us and we will put it right. If an error was made we will correct and re-lodge the certificate at no cost to you. If you remain unhappy, our accreditation schemes — Elmhurst Energy and ECMK — operate independent complaints procedures, and we will give you their details on request.

How refunds are paid

Refunds are always returned to the original payment method through PayPal, our payment processor, normally within 5 working days. We do not offer credit notes or vouchers in place of a refund.