Urban Art Association

That’s good to hear. I’ve heard that a few people are getting somewhere so hopefully they’re sorting things out. 

I'm almost a year in waiting now...

 It's a bugger if you're waiting on a coa to sell, amplified in a declining market. Good that it's authenticated and payments made. If you're not planning to sell in the near future then you can relax, it will come eventually. 
Best thing people can do as far I can see, if they want a quicker service, is to stop contacting PC at all unless it's absolutely necessary and you're in a position you need to sell. They appear to be very understaffed to be able to deal with the volume of emails/requests and haven't been able to create a system yet that's efficient enough for these employees/this number of employees to be able to cope.
Might be helpful to have a priority button on the PC site with clear instructions on situations it can be used. A system of some sort to prioritise rather than having to look at every email. Especially when there could be 5-10 emails from each person waiting any longer periods.
 If someone's in real need of help there really should be a way to get help quicker, otherwise it's an uncomfortable unknown time in limbo.

3 months is nothing. You've got a very very long wait ahead of you. We gave up and my friend did as well. He had been waiting 3 years. The only way to get a COA seemed to be to sell them. We then pay for the privilege of 'Pest control day!' YAY.. Where they come into the auction house at a day of their choosing it would seem.. (Put back from July to September. Literally the week before the start of the auction so COA's weren't optained in time for the start of the auction). They verify the work at a cost and issue a new COA to the auction house to go with the print for sale.. This seemed to be the only way to get any form of action or reply out of PC. Despite a few small works I am now relieved of my Banksy's (in more ways than one). Just pray you don't end up dealing with the stolen art registry then things get really fun (they claimed that our print bought directly from POW could have been stolen from a house in 2004 (value of print £150) and sold back to POW and then resold on to us lol.. and they wanted us to pay money to these fraudulent liars in order to sell our own print! Urrgghhh glad to see the back of it all.

What's the point in paying a fee to register as the new owner, you already own it. As long as the provenance is solid and seller trusted you're fine.
 The vast majority of Banksys aren't registered under current owners name.
In theory if all Banksys ever created were registered under the correct owners name and PC has capable staff in place, functioning/communicating in a reasonable way, then it would be a rock solid system. Anyone buying could quickly check with PC if it's legit/stolen simply by emailing with the sellers name and print details, PC could then confirm with the owner they're selling and then confirm with buyer it's safe to move forward. Good luck waiting for a reply,  buyers will probably get bored and buy something else.
Unfortunately PCs communication/system is terrible and many don't want the headache of having to wait for/deal with them.
It's a waste of time/money/energy.
On one hand PC are attempting (poorly) to create a bullet proof system but simultaneously tearing it apart. Fine sharing unredacted details if it's a trusted dealer/individual but private sellers shouldn't share this info to just anyone showing interest. It's a blueprint for creating fakes.
PC and the coa used to be something admired, very clever, it brought a different level of confidence.Shame to see something potentially so good become so disastrous and wreckless.

It’s a waste of time. No one does check before you buy on a print, no seller is willing to wait 6 months to maybe get a reply from PCO, and in most cases hear nothing back. If it’s a canvas worth £300k+ then maybe, some institutions who pay good money will make it a condition of sale, most of these have an inside connection to PCO and for these type of works they tend to be more responsive, but still can take months. For me with check before you not really functioning there is very little benefit to register a print in your name, it only really benefits PCO in fees and data. The COA in and of itself is good enough for 9 out of 10 buyers.  

If you're buying from somebody who is not the registered owner, doesn't that create problems for the provenance of the work and, down the line, problems with PC?

it suits your pockets to say that doesn't it , Miss Brooks?

No 

The point being missed for whatever reason is that it's a great idea if PC wasn't shit at communication. It's no problem waiting months to register a work hanging on your wall, what happens when you go to sell and the buyer wants to check it's registered and PC don't reply for months. When you decide to sell a work you don't want or can't wait months for a reply. Buyers don't want to wait months, once they've agreed a price it's theirs in their head, they want to hang it. A lot of buyers will get bored and finding something else.
The ideas brilliant, the execution is bloody awful. If they're not embarrassed they should be.
Spend £45 or don't, makes very little difference.

Sorry Mojo but you seem to be avoiding the main reason people can’t be bothered.
The reason as stated by others are the unacceptable timescales.
Doesn’t matter if you’re a flipper or a first time buyer from an owner who’s had it a few years, neither wants to play a waiting game on whether or not PC will be arsed to a knowledge and carry out the task you’ve paid them for, for what? 6 months? 12 months? 18 months? It’s absolutely pathetic and unacceptable.

Depends what way the winds blowing 

I sort of regret wading in on this now as the only dealings I've had with any sort of pest control recently was to clean up a load of pigeon shit from my balcony   and I have stuff to do today... but I still maintain that it is better to register any work than to not bother.  It may eventually make the system a lot faster and would definitely safeguard the buyer.  You can buy reasonably safely with a COA and register afterwards.