Needing house re-wired before purchase - how to work out approp price reduction?

[mintchocchick]

Our surveyor recommended a full electrical survey on the house we are buying. The electrician has come back to say it needs a full re-wire as cables are 1940's and no longer suitable. He has estimated £4500 for the job and suggested we add on £400 for plasterer but I have no idea what to add on for the re-decorating and then what percentage of the total to ask the vendors to pay (reduce sale price by).

It is 4 bed semi, quite high ceilings and coving etc. Does anyone have an idea how much it would be to re-decorate? I have only ever done one room at a time and actually not done that for a long time.

Also I don't think we should be expecting them to contribute to full re-decorating, i.e. ceilings won't be damaged by re-wiring so I imagine they wouldn't cover that. Any advice gratefully received, there is no EA involved so I can't ask them for an opinion

I would ask them to drop the price by the cost of rewiring and plastering, so £4900. I don't think you can include decorating costs, a) because most purchasers redecorate anyway and b) redecorating costs are a how-long-is-a-piece-of-string figure, depending on what you choose, quality etc.

Before I read your post I was going to say £5k for a medium sized house and £10k for a big one.

Your estimate sounds about right.

We're in the middle of renovations & we're paying £4500 for new wiring for 4 beds, 1 study, bathroom, en-suite, hallway (5 light fittings & lots of sockets) living room, inglenook, kitchen, porch/utility & 2 new outside lights.

Sounds right to me too. x

So you think suggest a reduction for full amount of re-wiring?

On a previous house purchase where an agent was involved (which fell through) she said the rule of thumb is to total all work needed doing then request they contribute 50% of it, so reflect that it needs doing prior to contract exchange but that new owners get benefit of it over years to come.

So I thought we should only ask for 50% of re-wiring but then add on 50% of re-decorating as we are going to have to re-decorate as a direct result of re-wiring. but maybe £4900 will be equiv to that?

Firstly, was it a proper electrician, or one of these people who do Electrical surveys - there is a difference. We had to have an electrical survey done prior to letting, and he told us the entire house needed redoing as it wasn't in line with current regs; bollocks, as we had had it redone about 10 years previously, and regs aren't retrospective. All we had to do (as per a real electrician) was get the switch for the immersion moved outside the bathroom (and when we move back, it's going back in the bathroom!).

I take your point scaryteacher - Ithink there are often times when 'experts' say work needs doing and really it doesn't need doing, but I think this seems right. The house is 1920's and a lot of the electrics date back to 1940s - in 70yrs there must be a fair bit of wear and tear - and also new, better materials for protection etc.

It was a good firm that carried out the work, so I'm happy with that bit.

I'm just a bit thrown that we have so much work to do before moving in. What a hassle.

We have just purchased a house that needed rewiring. The vendor got a different quote from another electrician who priced up remedial work, rather than doing a full rewire. Vendor agreed to pay for remedial work, which was about a quarter of the cost of a rewire. We agreed to that as got the house quite cheaply anyway, but we have just finished having it rewired as we wanted it done fully.

piggymad was it really disruptive having the rewiring done? Have you had to redecorate everywhere? I'm trying to imagine what level of work we might be in for!

We haven't moved in yet - we're moving in tomorrow so we haven't been affected by it thankfully.
It is a 3 bed semi and only took approx two full days to do it, which is quicker than he orginally estimated. It doesn't look that bad, but obviously there are bare bits of plaster down some walls and around lights and sockets, so it looks a work in progress affair. We can't afford to decorate all at once, but I think we can touch up where the plaster has been redone around sockets etc with a bit of sanding and some tester paint pots. They pull up carpets and warned us that kitchen tiles might get broken, but none of ours were damaged. We discovered lovely wooden floorboards under the carpets so have decided to keep them in a couple of rooms and will sand and varnish them!
The house is very dusty though - it will need a good couple of deep cleans before I feel like all of the dust and plaster has gone.

Thanks and good luck with your move tomorrow!

It does depend on lots of things though. If the wiring is that old, then that would surely have been apparent (old light switches etc) as you look around and therefore already reflected in the agreed price ?
Even if you don't feel it was, all you can do is ask. The vendors aren't complied to pay anything towards it (they may feel that was reflected in the agreed price, even if you don't). How much you want to 'chance' will depend on all the things that all house sales depend on..... how much you want that particular house... how keen they are to sell.... how many other offers they've had... if they actually have £2.5K to split with you.

I agree with the others who say you can't include decorating - many new owners will decorate anyway, it's what happens when people buy new houses, they make them 'their own'.

the price the house will sell for depends on what the buyer will pay and what the seller will accept. Rewiring is a bit of a red herring as the vendor might say he has already allowed for it, but if he doesn't have another buyer biting his ankles he might knock a bit off for any reason, or for none.

If you are going to have it rewired please please please have it done before you move in. Chasing out the walls makes a vast amount of dust unless slowly done by hand, and if the electrician has to keep putting the floorboards back so you don't fall down the hole, or moving carpets and furniture, it will take longer and cost more. You might even expect to have lights working...