Should you register the guarantee?

You don’t have to register your appliance or send in the guarantee card. You will still get your manufacturers 12 month guarantee. However, registering your appliance is definitely something you should do – and here are the reasons why.

Manufacturer’s can refuse to honour extended guarantees if you haven’t registered the appliance

Appliances always come with a 12 month guarantee. However, some guarantees can be two years, five years or even 10 years. A guarantee covering more than 12 months will usually be on condition that you register your appliance with them. If you don’t, they may refuse to carry out a free repair for the rest of the guarantee once it’s out of the first 12 month period.

If you don’t register your appliance you still have full statutory rights under consumer law. If an appliance has an inherent fault, or fails to last a reasonable time you can still get redress regardless of whether the appliance was registered. It’s just that it may be difficult to enforce and you are likely to need to get consumer advice.

Not registering the appliance has safety implications for you

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 – Appliance safety notices