Back at the beginning of June, me and SWMBO had our offer accepted on a cottage in Matlock. Built in 1904, it has lots of character but we always knew that electrical issues were going to be likely. Things have been progressing well and the searches are all complete and the valuation and mortgage offer is in the bag.

The home buyers report has only highlighted one red area, electrics! He said no sign of RCD protection or adequate earthing, dated fittings and amateurish supply to the outbuilding. Google research suggests a new consumer unit would be in the region of £350 to £500 including labour and that would resolve at least some of the issues. **We await the electrician we have appointed coming back to us with his report**

Now we could just take this hit and accept it is inevitable with a house of this age or we could try to reduce the offer to the value of the work required or we could insist on the work being done before contract exchange.

Taking the vendors point of view, they could argue well you know what you are letting yourself in for with a house like this, its been fine for the 12 years we've been in and you don't 'need' to get it done. They could comfortably call our bluff and say get lost, we will put it back on the market thanks.

I know it all comes down to individuals and their unique circumstances but if you were the vendor and we tried to negotiate, would you call our bluff or consider working something out? LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

One is always going to have to do things to an old house, and compared with the overall cost of buying a house £350 doesn’t sound like much, and certainly not worth losing the property over. The valuation will have taken account of condition, and as you say you always knew the electrics were likely to be an issue one might suggest that your original offer should have taken account of that.

Having just sold a house, and bought another, my thoughts are as follow. As you say, how far a vendor is prepared to go will depend on their individual circumstances. We had a predefined point beyond which we weren’t prepared to go, and we were prepared to relist the property if necessary. The property we bought, like yours, has no rcd but as we were aware of that we factored it into the initial offer and didn’t try to renegotiate on that basis later. Sometimes, however, issues which weren’t known about in advance come to light and then it is certainly acceptable to renegotiate. In our case the septic tank at the new property turned out not to meet regulations and needed replaced at a cost of almost £10K. To resolve this we proposed to the vendor that we would take the property as it was and get the work done ourselves in return for the cost being taken off the purchase price. This worked for us.

In the current climate you may well find the vendor is prepared to negotiate, but bear in mind that if they pull out it will cost you a lot more than £350, plus a lot of hassle, to find an alternative property.

Such are my thoughts on the matter - take or leave as you will!

five years ago I sold a house, built new in mid 1980's, and had to have an Electrical Report on electrics. The report found that cartridge fuses, replaced with RCDs was not sufficient. So their recommendation was to have a new consumer box installed. All wiring/cable was deemed to be OK. Cost then was £400, with certificate.

Hope that helps.

Well you and your wife appear to have found a house that
closely matches your expectations (Dreams)
and you've put in the offer which has been accepted,
now given the cost of housing in the UK, do
you really want to let £500 get in the way?
if the property is structurally sound with no other main issues
then speak to the vendor, you may have a surprise!
but remember, you would be confident that the electrics are safe
and all for £500.
Good luck
Dave DAVE.

Personally I'd await your electricians report and decide then subject to the works involved. If there's a lot needs doing, perhaps let your vendors know - I don't think 'electrics have been fine all the while we've been here' is a defence if the electrics are bordering dangerous. Did the lenders surveyor make any reference to withholding funds until that work was dealt with?

The electrics should not be a problem as the house has not burnt down.

Nobody has died, and no fires, so you should be ok, and just update it when you get more time.

As a Vendor, you are not required by law to provide the purchaser with a Gas Safety Certificate or an Electrical Safety Certificate. You are required to provide a Gas Safety Certificate if you intend to let the property and must do this annually.

The NICEIC recommend 10 yearly inspections of all domestic wiring installations or upon change of ownership whichever occurs sooner, but the onus for this is usually placed on the buyer not the seller and is usually a recommendation made in most Homebuyer & Building Survey reports. So the purchaser may bounce it back to the seller!

If there have been any alterations or additions to the electrical installation since January 1st 2005, the seller must however obtain a Part P Building Regulation Certificate and this should be passed to the purchaser. All electrical alterations, even minor works, are now covered by Part P and must be either certified by the installing electrician or inspected and approved by Building Control at the Local Authority.

https://www.reallymoving.com/surveyors/faq...ity-safety

I would buy the house, then get it inspected, and then have the work done and certified. I am sure that the cost of finding another 'dream' property will be far more than the cost of putting the electrics right.

Due to a family bereavement, we have just sold a family home, which was about 100 years old and had many changes to it's infrastructure. We just provided any certificates that we could find, and the buyer took the risk.

The price agreed took everything into consideration.

It's a bit like buying a car either with, or without, a warranty. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
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Last edited by IanMetro on 2nd Jul 2020 6:07 pm. Edited 1 time in total

Thanks for the input

The mortgage lenders valuation didn't go into any detail like the survey we've had done. Their valuation was purely to ensure the house gave them adequate security.

We will wait and see what the report brings. Personally I'm happy if its just the consumer unit and improved wiring to the outbuilding. If it starts getting silly money we will have to consider negotiating or putting some of the further work on the back burner.

I have budgeted for a decent CCTV system so I guess it would pay to ensure at least the consumer unit is up to standard. LL.B (Hons) - University of Derby
LOT (Lord of Time) - University of Gallifrey

If you are having a new Consumer Unit, make sure it has spare positions, and if, possible, get a 32 amp isolated spur run to take an 7Kw Electric Car Charger.

And - Enjoy your new house, you don't have to do everything immediately. In 50 years time you will look back and it will appear much cheaper and quicker. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
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(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

The homebuyers report could just be a CYA exercise. Just because it doesn’t comply with current regs, doesn’t mean it didn’t comply at the time it was installed. Regs are always changing, doesn’t mean you have to make changes every time that happens. A friend of mine has just had to have her consumer unit changed because she rents it out and has to have a metal consumer unit fitted as it’s the law (Or will be soon) with rental properties. I had my consumer unit replaced about 25 years ago. It’s plastic and it’s staying plastic. Past: FL2 TD4 HSE Auto
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im just going through pretty much the exact same thing as you

Im moving to an older cottage type property which I fully expect to need some electrical work at some time in the near future however im not fussed about that

the problem has been with my house that im moving out of, built in 1980 and then had kitchen/garage alteration done in around 1984/1985.
there is no building regulations paperwork or approved sign off of the work that was done, and my buyers (courtesy of their overcautious solicitor) had a major wobble over it.
I and my solicitor have now convinced them that no building regs were required at the time of the conversion, and as it has been in place with no cracks or damage to the structure of the house for around 35 years, so is perfectly acceptable and safe.

One of things that smoothed it over was my offer of a putting a building indemnity insurance in place which costs around £125 according to my solicitor ( ).
Im not 100% sure that an indemnity policy would cover the house falling down due to 35 year old building work but it at least gave some peace of mind to them so we could progress the sale.

in your case it might be worth asking your solicitor to look into the vendors of the cottage putting in place an Indemnity Policy if it will cover the electrics. Then you get the consumer unit changed (a must do IMO) and the electrics checked and updated if necessary.

Lets face it though, most 15-20 year old house should now really be rewired and have new boilers as they dont meet current standards, even though they are still working perfectly safely.

Consumer units with 2 RCDs (one for power the other for lights so if one trips you can never be in the dark) cost about £50 from B&Q or Screwfix, if you are not rewiring then any decent electrician should be able to install it within 2 hours, this doesn't include the wiring to the outbuilding which should be on a spur with an RCD in the outbuilding, a garage consumer unit should satisfy this. You don't need certification for this work as certification is only required for major changes like adding extensions to the house requiring building certification or as said previously renting.
Just buy it and sort it out in your own time, you may require changes to the electrics after you have moved in and the present layout of sockets and lighting may not be suitable for modern high number of appliances and electronic gismos, it will be cheaper to get it all done in one go when you are ready, the report doesn't say it is dangerous or unfit for purpose, just it is not to the latest specification as over 80% of houses in the UK are also not to the latest specification. my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
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My daughter sold a house about 4 years ago. It was built about 1900 and it still had Wylex wired fuses in it and no RCD. It was never mentioned in any surveys.

One thing I would recommend is getting a socket tester like the one below. I bought one a few years ago and have tested her new house (1970's) and lent it to a few relatives and it has flagged up a few mains sockets have been shown to have no earth connected or neutral/live reversed.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/lap-ms6860d-socket-tester/91596 3 x FL1 2 manual + 1 auto
5 x FL2 4 manual + 1 auto
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IanMetro wrote:

If you are having a new Consumer Unit, make sure it has spare positions, and if, possible, get a 32 amp isolated spur run to take an 7Kw Electric Car Charger.

And - Enjoy your new house, you don't have to do everything immediately. In 50 years time you will look back and it will appear much cheaper and quicker.

Just to be clear, note that building regs part P regulation 12(6A) explicitly lists the replacement of a consumer unit as a notifiable work subject to certification.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/g...P_2013.pdf

This is a problem for me at the moment as our new property doesn’t have rcds and whilst I’m perfectly capable of replacing a consumer unit (I have some electrical engineering in my past and have done it before) I want to stick to the rules to avoid problems in the future. Which means I’m going to have to pay someone to do something I could easily do myself. Over-regulated nanny state!