By Maryna Landman, MBA, director of Strategy & Compliance at Alpha Plumbing
This is part one of a two-part series, written by Maryna Landman, director of Strategy & Compliance, Alpha Plumbing.
South Africans are not short of opinions about Certificates of Compliance – some see them as protection, some see them as paperwork, some see them as gatekeeping, and others see them as one of the few things standing between competent work and a market where anyone with tools and a WhatsApp profile can call themselves a plumber.
But before we argue about who should control the certificate, we need to ask a simpler question.
What does the signature mean?
Because if a CoC can be sourced after the work is done, after the trench is closed, after the cheaper contractor has left, and after the professional being asked to sign had no control over the work, then the certificate is not proof anymore.
It is a costume.
Australia is not South Africa — but the warning still applies
Australia is not South Africa – its laws are different. Its enforcement structures are different. Its state systems, record-keeping and professional controls do not map neatly onto our reality.
I am not suggesting that South Africa must cut and paste Australian plumbing law into our market, but we can learn from the mistakes and controls of others.
We do that everywhere else in life. We look at where something went wrong elsewhere and ask, ‘What can we learn from the mistakes of others to improve ourselves?’
Australia is also not a random example. It is one of the countries South Africans often talk about when emigration, stronger systems and clearer professional order come up. The point here is: in that kind of market, proof is not treated as an inconvenience.
It is part of the control system.
Australian plumbing guidance describes a compliance certificate as a document issued by a licenced plumber to certify that the work they carry out complies with the relevant plumbing standards, codes and regulations. Only licenced plumbers may issue those certificates, and the licenced plumber’s insurance must cover the work listed on the certificate for six years.
Even more importantly, that same guidance links the certificate to control: a licenced plumber may only issue a compliance certificate if they carried out or completed the work themselves, supervised certain registered or apprentice plumbers, engaged another licenced plumber to do the work, or completed work started by another licenced plumber under specific conditions.
That is the lesson we should embrace.
Self-certification should mean ‘trust me, because I can stand behind the work.’
When a signature becomes the evidence
In one Australian case, a plumber was fined AUD18 642 – roughly R222 000 at the current broad exchange rate – and disqualified for three years after issuing a compliance certificate when he was not authorised to do so. The defects were not academic – they included incorrectly sealed or joined pipework and a leaking internal electric hot-water service that caused flood damage to adjoining apartments.
In another Australian drainage case, a plumber was penalised AUD9 554.50 – about R114 000 – after covering the installed pipework on a below-ground sanitary drain before it was offered for inspection. The same report says he also lodged a compliance certificate with incorrect information, leaving the homeowners exposed.
That is what people forget when they say, “Can you just sign this off?”
A signature is never just a signature.
It is a person stepping into the chain of responsibility.
The job we did not get
We recently faced a smaller, quieter version of this ethical dilemma on a sewer job.
The original call was straightforward enough: there was a sewer-related problem, proper diagnostic work was done, a camera inspection was carried out, the issue was identified and explained, and a quote was prepared.
Then the quote went somewhere else.
That is the customer’s right. I do not expect every quote to be accepted. People compare prices. In South Africa, they often have to. Budgets are real. Pressure is real. Nobody phones a plumber because they are looking for a luxury experience.
But here is where the story changed.
The work was done by someone else, outside our control. We did not manage the excavation. We did not control the pipe route, bedding, fall, joints, access points, backfill or testing. We were not there when decisions were made underground, and underground is exactly where bad plumbing likes to hide.
Then came the request.
Could we just come and sign it off?
The customer needed the proof for council. As I understood it, it related to a subdivision process. So this was not a random customer asking for a piece of paper to feel better. The request was made because the body that is expected to enforce compliance required some form of proof.
On inspection, the work was not something we could certify. There were technicalities that could be repaired, but the bigger issue was that the eventual installation deviated from the original building plans without prior approval.
That was the moment.
Not a dramatic boardroom moment. Not a legal thriller. Just a practical, uncomfortable, very real plumbing decision: do we “help” the customer by signing, or do we protect the meaning of the signature?
We refused.
Politely. Firmly. Correctly.
The customer was not the villain
It would be easy to make the customer the villain, but that would also be incorrect.
From his side, he probably thought the hardest part was already behind him. The sewer was installed, and he believed he got (more or less) the same system we would have installed. Money had changed hands. Now the council wanted proof, and he needed someone to help him close the loop.
To him, the CoC may have looked like the final admin step – but that is the education gap.
Many customers do not understand that the certificate is not separate from the work. They think the document proves compliance because it exists. They do not realise that the document has value only if the person signing has a proper basis and recognised competence to sign.
That matters – because an uninformed customer can accidentally ask a professional to do something deeply unprofessional.
Our question was, ‘What happens if we sign?’
Our question was blunt: if we sign this off and it is not compliant, what happens next?
I am not a plumber, and I do not pretend to be one. But I do have a legal background, and one thing legal training teaches you quickly is this: signatures matter. They are not decoration. They connect people to statements, decisions and consequences.
What if the line fails?
“Yes, but can’t you come and do another camera inspection (more expense for the customer) to confirm technicalities and then sign it off?”
Even still, what if someone checks the building plans and the sewer isn’t running where indicated?
What if the property is sold and the next owner relies on that document?
And then the question lands: what if the council, an insurer, an attorney, a body corporate, a facility manager or a future plumber asks who certified the work?
Do we want the signature on that piece of paper to evidentially point to us?
That is not paranoia. That is risk thinking. And that’s the law.
South African building rules do not treat plumbing as casual work. Regulation A18 of the National Building Regulations states that no person may perform the trade of plumbing unless they are a trained plumber or are working under the adequate control of a trained plumber or an approved competent person. It also makes it an offence for a trained plumber to allow uncontrolled plumbing work by someone who is not properly trained.
Drainage is even more sensitive because it disappears. The National Building Regulations require drainage installations to be capable of withstanding prescribed tests, with testing carried out in the presence of the building control officer or another authorised local authority officer. They also say no drainage installation may be used until inspected, tested and passed by the local authority.
So, the question was not, “Can we do the customer a favour?”
The question was, “Can we truthfully attach our name to this?”
We could not.
To be continued in part 2…
Maryna Landman is the Director of Strategy & Compliance at Alpha Plumbing, serving Johannesburg and Pretoria. With 22+ years in the plumbing industry and a background in law and business (BCom, LLB, MBA), she writes about compliance, risk, and what it takes to build sustainable, professional plumbing businesses in South Africa. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Supplied by Maryna Landman |
