Buying a flat with bathroom 'illegal' electricity setup?

[AnnieNui82]

We've had an offer accepted on a property and we had a Homebuyer's report done last month, it came back with several REDS and the surveyor told us to walk away –or offer about £50k less than our original offer! The seller won't accept a lower offer, the EA are pushing us to walk away and admit that we have "simply changed our minds", which isn't true at all.

We are FTB so we're not aware of all regulations etc. so when we viewed the flat with the EA, we noticed that the washing machine plumbing was in the small bathroom (about 2.3m x 1.6m), with a normal power socket installed on the opposite wall to the bath tub. At the time we all agreed that it wasn't 100% safe, but only after the Report we realised that it might not even be legal?!

We were gutted to receive such a damning report, and we're convinced that the seller shouldn't be able to sell the property as it currently stands as the bathroom doesn't comply to regulations. We would feel more confident to enter the negotiations if there was some kind of law preventing the kind of quick cosmetic refurbishment sales with clearly incompetent building and safety standards.

Has anyone encountered a similar problem with the power socket in a small bathroom?

Yes and they are right - walk away. I wouldn't even offer less for it. The place has been renovated by a cowboy. If that is what was found you can double the list of what is on the report for what is wrong with the place.

I have gutted homes before now and some of the shoddy workmanship is just shocking. The most shocking was someone used a washing machine hose to hook up a gas stove. There were children living in the home. I was so shocked by what I saw I shut off the gas in front of the EA and had my guy who was working down the road come over right away to replace the hose and check out the boiler. My cousin died from carbon monoxide poisoning so I am very sensitive about these things.

In the UK it is considered dangerous, not permitted, never has been, and no reputable electrician would do it.

However there is no Building Regulations Police that breaks into people's houses and looks for non-compliant work. People do all sorts of terrible things. Also, an old house is not required to be rebuilt every time regulations change.

You sound as if you still want to buy this house. Why? Buy one of the others.

Blimey - if the surveyor said walk away or reduce your offer by £50k then I would heed his advice. Do you need a mortgage to buy? What valuation figure has the surveyor put on the place?

Don't walk away - run. Even at the lower offer (not that the idiots are accepting it) what you could find later could see you out of pocket, not mentioning the time, inconvenience and inconvenience.
Again - run, and tell them it's because it's a jerrybuilt shithole.

it is allowed under certain circumstances:

www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/guides-and-advice/around-the-home/bathroom-safety/

but this doesn't sound like those circumstances.

don't worry about everybody else - people spending lots of money on houses need to look after themselves, or employ a professional to flag up problems, as you did. There are laws to prevent this kind of thing. But people break laws.

this sounds like the least of the worries, so run away very fast.

Every electrical installation should be certified, so if there's isn't a certification for the installation of the socket in the bathroom - and other electrical works then yes walk away and don't look back.
If a fire started due to dodgy wiring and hurt you or a child who would you be able to blame? Don't buy a house knowing it could cause you damage. Dp is an electricIan and comes home shocked at some people's 'home renovations' and illegal installs, he pays a lot of money to registration company's to ensure checks to prove he is compliant every year and the council are only aware of bodge jobs if reported.

the room dimensions given mean that the socket cannot be far enough away from the bath.

There are safe ways it could have been done, but a double socket is not one of them.

Wow thank you everyone..! How quick and compassionate advice! I have told the EA to make sure the next buyers are not fooled into thinking the flat is all good and ready to go...! (not that they'll follow my advice...)

Dodged a bullet there?

What else is wrong with it that the surveyor thinks you should offer £50k less ? The washing machine situation isn't great but you could simply take the washing machine out of the bathroom and terminate the socket - that alone wouldn't have me running for the hills. And why is the EA telling you to tell the seller that you changed your mind - why not tell him/her the real reason you won't be buying which might make the seller change his/her mind on the price and getting a subsequent buyer easier?

lala When you see cowboy work on the surface you can be darn sure that everything 'updated' by the current owner needs to be remedied. I wouldn't be surprised if there were structural issues.

One place I bought had the weight bearing walls removed by the previous owner to make the downstairs open plan. I got the keys from the agent and went over with my team to put up support bars because I was scared of the building collapsing. When we pulled back the drywall you could see the support bars that were there were straining. I put in four beams to steady the house for a cost of about GBP15k. I also had to underpin the back wall because they had just put an extension on the back without looking at the support. The underpin cost about GBP10k. Oh and then the garage the johnny boy had built didn't have any damp proofing or ventilation. It cost approx. GBP10k to fix that. Thank goodness I paid a rock bottom price for the house otherwise it would have bankrupted me.

Yes, I absolutely accept that but I'm just puzzled that the washing machine in the bathroom scenario seems to be causing such a reaction - surely to have suggested a reduction of £50k, the surveyor must have seen other more hair-raising things and I wondered what they were.

lala, the surveyor was incredible thorough and he spent an extra 2-3 hours taking photos and explaining on the phone to us what he thought of the workmanship of the refurbishment. Get this – the seller's builders had put up a random stud wall in the living room 'by accident', after we had seen it and put an offer on it!

The flat was advertised as a 3-bed, but it was only 48 sq metres in total floor area – even for E17 that's taking the p**s. We were just about OK with the size, asking price was £300,000 and that's usually what you have to pay there for 1-2 beds –but after the survey we realised that they'd simply made one of the bedrooms into two small bedrooms. When you refurbish a place to the highest-looking spec with all the bells and whistles, who needs a survey, eh? The EA actually asked me "are you sure you need a Homebuyer's survey? Wouldn't a snagging survey do?" I almost agreed with him!

The size of the flat is the reason the washing machine couldn't simply be moved elsewhere, the kitchen was tiny and had no plumbing for the machine. Also, the boiler was placed in a small loft space in the living room, which we weren't shown at the viewing, and it has no access to it. The loft didn't have sufficient support either. The guttering hadn't been created correctly and the flat was damp, according to the report. The building is over 100 years old, three bedroom house above a shop converted into FIVE flats. We were told there were only four flats at the viewing.

There were tons of other things which made the surveyor lose his temper – he said he'd only told 3 people in FIVE YEARS "to walk away". They'd used the cheapest materials on the roof which was already tearing away, all gutters were overflowing and in a building that old, you can't rule out serious structural damage. All the other flats were empty so we don't know who we'd end up sharing walls with, and the flat had a high risk of flooding too according to searches.

What scared us is the amount of visible things wrong with it. I didn't want to start guessing what was going to appear in a year's time.

told you the washing machine was the least of your worries...

future ref: you could have spotted some of this without going as far as the survey. The environment agency has the flood risk maps online. Visit a property (outside) in the rain to check gutters etc. When you view, always ask to see the boiler. Turn taps, run showers, flush toilets.

but if they continue to wreck it after the viewing, and lie about other things - staggering.

lucky escape.

Reading all of that I'd say the socket was one of the least of your problems,
If the boiler was inaccessible you'd have to wonder if they'd ventilated it properly - if not carbon monoxide can, and will, kill.
The guttering wouldn't only cause damp for you but the other flats too, damp leads to worse problems.
High risk flood area you'd struggle to get home insurance, and those who will provide it will charge a fortune.

Lucky escape I'd say.

special our opening and closing lines there match, great minds

special we have learned so much from this experience, believe me! The survey was the best £550 ever spent. The surveyor felt so bad for us and was so happy that we walked away that he offered the next survey half price!

to both of the last posters!

more seriously - now we know that it is so much more than dodgy electrics, does anyone know if there is a way of reporting this place? I am wondering if there is a risk of someone buying one of the other flats and not knowing about the boiler on this one, because if it has been installed incorrectly there might be a CO poisoning risk.

or it just plain falls on someone's head...

I'll ask dp when he gets home - not sure if you report the building or the installation electrician. It's a council department they're reported to I think.

We walked away from a house with floor problems and the surveyor similarly reduced the price of the next survey for us. I would be surprised if a surveyor would be able to approve a mortgage on this heap so unless you've got £300K in readies to hand, you would have been thwarted further down the road. It always amazes me when buyers try to save money by skipping the survey or having a mate look things over. No doubt some such numpty will buy this crock.