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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

AIBU or are our home buyers CF?

51 replies

ChocolateEmergency · 04/03/2020 08:11

Selling our house and just received the buyers enquires, which to me seem over the top and actually rather cheeky.

They have asked that we:

Arrange for the boiler to be serviced and gas certified
Arrange for the electrics to be tested and certified
Arrange for the gas fires to be chimney swept

The first two I can maybe understand but the third seem really over the top to me.

So AIBU or should we being doing these things?

OP posts:

LIZS · 04/03/2020 10:23

Agree to the gas service which is good practice anyway but rest is wishful thinking.

MrsPelligrinoPetrichor · 04/03/2020 10:29

Anything gas needs to be checked annually so that's two from the list.

Electrics would be picked up in the survey, wouldn't they?

Sugarplumfairy65 · 04/03/2020 10:34

@21xILikeJamx

Yes, I would. It would leave me wondering what they were hiding.
Whenever I've sold a house I've always made sure its sale ready. I don't know where you are, but up here in the north there are plenty of houses to choose from.

gladysinthepicture · 04/03/2020 10:37

tbh as a viewer the first question I ask is age of boiler and last servcice. An old boiler and no service puts me off.

cupoftea84 · 04/03/2020 10:38

Gas certificate is normal.
I paid as the buyer for the electrical survey, seller was difficult about access but we all learnt why when the survey came back the fuse box was a fire hazard.
The third request seems odd to me but I'm not an estate agent or conveyancer.

MintyMabel · 04/03/2020 10:38

Yeah, complete CFs for making sure the house they buy isn’t going to kill them.

MintyMabel · 04/03/2020 10:39

Electrics would be picked up in the survey, wouldn't they?

Depends on the type of survey but generally not. You can’t check wiring without knocking holes in the wall.

bingbangbing · 04/03/2020 10:44

Have bought a sold four properties in the last four years.

This is standard now.

Do you want the sale to proceed? If yes, do the checks.

Or, refuse and make the sale more difficult or fall through, for the sake of a few hundred quid.

I'd do the checks.

xandersmom2 · 04/03/2020 10:45

Arrange for the boiler to be serviced and gas certified - standard, as a buyer I would ask for this and expect you to provide it

Arrange for the electrics to be tested and certified - as a buyer I'd ask (our solicitor certainly recommended it), when our seller refused we paid for our own - cost around £300 but was money well spent as threw up a few unsafe things that needed to be repaired and which our seller then had to fix.

Arrange for the gas fires to be chimney swept - doesn't make sense to me, is the chimney even sweepable, if a gas fire is there? I've lived in houses with chimneys that were blocked off other than for gas flue, for example. On the other hand, my neighbour has an open fireplace with a gas fire stood in front - in which case I'd want you to have it swept.

Our house has a woodburner, seller refused to get anything swept or checked and this did cause us to seriously dither about whether to proceed (we waited until we knew for sure there was nothing on the electrical survey before deciding for sure, so this did add a delay to proceedings). In the end we went ahead without it, subsequently found out the woodburner installation wasn't even signed off by building control so ended up paying around £500 to have it removed and reinstalled by a HETAS engineer, and everything swept and inspected. In the big picture, a small price to pay and I'm glad we still went ahead - but it was a risk as we could have found there was significant remedial work needed, as per a PP.

In short - I don't think they're being CF, they're being cautious which is sensible in a scenario where everyone will just shrug and say 'buyer beware' if they go ahead without these assurances and it all goes wrong later..

Babytigerrr · 04/03/2020 10:48

Have bought a sold four properties in the last four years

This is standard now

we sold nov 2018 - absolutely isnt standard. Our buyers didnt even ask about any of those things.

Rojelio · 04/03/2020 10:56

Seems pretty ordinary requests, I was expecting you to say some really odd request...why wouldn't they want to make sure those things are all in order before buying?

Sickofrain · 04/03/2020 10:58

Totally standard questions. Our solicitor insisted on asking the sellers for 1 and 2, even though we were going to replace both as part of a planned refurb.

bingbangbing · 04/03/2020 11:05

@Babytigerrr

So you had daft buyers.

Babytigerrr · 04/03/2020 11:07

maybe we did, but that doesnt mean its a "standard" thing to ask. Its certainly not standard to ask the seller to pay for it and arrange it themselves.

Just like you wouldnt expect the seller to pay for the survey either!

bingbangbing · 04/03/2020 11:28

The fact that I and several others say it is standard, means it probably is standard though...

chockaholic72 · 04/03/2020 11:28

I’d always ask for it after I helped a friend move house with a baby - I said I’d clean as the place was a midden. Turned on the hot water as the kitchen was filthy and there wasn’t any. The boiler had apparently broken a month before, and according to the neighbours the CF owner had just been boiling kettles for water as the boiler couldn’t be fixed and the she didn’t want to pay for a new one.

So my friend had to move into a house with a new baby and no heat or hot water and straight away pay for a new boiler.

Babytigerrr · 04/03/2020 11:37

bing considering standard means, accross the board, will happen - its clearly not is it!

it isnt happening with every house sale

its happening with some, so its not "standard"

anyway, done with arguing about it!

fedupandlookingforchange · 04/03/2020 11:37

Id ask for the boiler service and gas safety check. The survey should say something about the electrics e.g the age of the fuse box age of sockets and switches which will be strong indicators of the state of the electrics.
The gas fire should be serviced and have a safety cert as well.
If a house has been recently refurbished a certificate of completion should be supplied

bingbangbing · 04/03/2020 11:52

Standard doesn't mean every single house sale, ever.

You'd argue the colour of shite I think

Fieldsofsausages · 04/03/2020 11:59

I asked my sellers to get the boiler serviced as it was due, and for the electrics to be tested as electrical work had been completed by them (he was a 'builder') in the past year.

They refused, which came as no surprise. They were awkward from the moment I had my offer accepted.

So I paid to have them done. The boiler service cost £60 and everything was ok. The electrical test cost £190 and revealed £500 worth of work needed doing because of the bodge job they did, which I got knocked off the accepted offer.

It is standard to ask, and in my opinion, if something is due, then as the seller you should be obligated to get it down.

DreamingofSunshine · 04/03/2020 12:07

We insisted our sellers paid for the boiler service/annual check as they should be doing it anyway. We didn't on our first home purchase and got stung for a new boiler a month after completion.

Ultimately, it depends if the market favours the buyer or seller.

Noodledoodledoo · 04/03/2020 13:56

I sold a property last year, we did the boiler service and an aga service but other than that we pushed back on the other items. This was on advice from our solicitor who sent the requests though and I asked if this was now the standard of things having not purchased/sold a house for 6 years before that.

Her respnse was it is now often requested but it is not the norm yet for sellers to comply.

To be fair you didn't need any qualifications to know the electrics needed attention - most of the plugs dated from the 60/70's.

Winter2020 · 04/03/2020 15:57

I would just reply with any info/certs that you have (if any) and say "I am happy for the buyer to arrange any independent inspections that they deem necessary as part of their due diligence at their cost". They may reply and you could negotiate and form a compromise. You don't want to get into going any boiler or electrical issues at this point better that any issues are negotiated on price. Be wary if a relative/friend visits and tries to get you to pay for lots of fixes/knock money off. The person should be qualified and independent.

thegcatsmother · 04/03/2020 16:35

In the end we went ahead without it, subsequently found out the woodburner installation wasn't even signed off by building control so ended up paying around £500 to have it removed and reinstalled by a HETAS engineer,

Depends when it was installed surely? My woodburner didn't need building control, as it was a straight swap for the one the vendors were taking with them, and it was pre HETAS anyway.

Noidlet · 04/03/2020 16:53

We were asked for the top two when we sold last year and also a basic level independent survey. Did the survey & boiler but refused the electrics on advice from the estate agent. The flat we were selling was only 12 years old but apparently regulations change so often that any inspection would flag up "issues". There was nothing wrong with the electrics and our buyer was behaving a little bit erratically already, didn't want to give them any reason to overreact and to pull out of the sale.
Estate agent said that only if the house was older than the 70's would the electrics need investigating.

^ Pinch of salt on all the above, because all from estate agent .

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