You don’t have to register your appliance purchase or send in the guarantee card, but it makes sense to do so. We have statutory rights if an appliance breaks down, has an inherent fault, or fails to last a reasonable time. However, these rights often have to be fought for. Fortunately it’s usually easy to do online these days.
Manufacturer’s can refuse to honour extended guarantees if you haven’t registered the appliance
Appliances always come with a manufacturer’s 12 month guarantee. However, a manufacturer’s guarantee can be longer. Sometimes a lot longer. A guarantee covering more than a year will usually be on condition that you register your appliance with them. If you don’t, they may refuse to carry out a future repair once it’s out of the first 12 month period.
Not registering the guarantee has safety implications for your appliance
Always send off your guarantee registration card, or register it online. This ensures you are notified of any vital safety notices affecting your appliance. If a company discovers a serious fault, the first thing they do is contact all customers known to have purchased the affected appliance. They do this through their guarantee registration database. After that, all they can do is place advertisements in the press and hope people contact them. If you haven’t registered then you can miss warnings about very dangerous appliances leaving yourself and family vulnerable to serious risk.
Sadly it is not uncommon for very serious and dangerous safety issues to be discovered. Sometimes it’s many years after being sold. Please check out my list of some of the appliance safety notices that I’ve been made aware of so far – See Appliance safety notices
