WWYD? No boiler/ electric docs, due to complete in 2 weeks?!

[adaisy1394]

Hi All,
First thread so v appreciative for all/ any help!
Background:
I’m a FTB, buying a 2 bed Victorian terrace house win the west mids. We have agreed £115,000 which for the area and considering it has a garden, off road parking, transport links, 2 fireplaces and a cellar is a bit of a steal but still over the asking price. We originally offered in Dec 17 but were pipped to the post by someone else whose sale halted when her marriage broke down and could no longer buy. We stepped in with our same offer in Feb and were accepted.
• Mortgage offer issued
• Survey was fine but only a home buyers so full of the usual caveats about the age of the property
• Queries issued from us on 9ths March, seller gave responses to his solicitor on 17th April, Sellers solicitor only just passed on responses on Friday (4th May)??!!
• Due to complete 21st May
• Seller completed on his upward property last week but is staying in the property I’m buying until completion as there is unexpected work required in his new ones
• V short chain – only us and the seller
The Problem:
In response to the queries, the seller has said he has NOTHING for either the gas or the electrics. The boiler is old but no more than 8 - 10 years. The electrics are also old, looks like a new circuit board and light switches etc and I THINK there is an earth but the plug sockets are the kind that aren’t flush to the wall, they are little plastic boxes. The seller has made no attempt to prove either the electric or the boiler are safe and on checking the gas safe register and said I suppose quite rightly that the onus is on me. I’m just not sure how to make this right/ safe, the boiler was never registered with gas safe and I understand you can’t do this retrospectively. I’d really like to complete on time but if we need to replace the boiler and see to any electrical issues, with the current agreed price we will be massively out of pocket.
This is also very much just a starter home so on top of budget being tight, I plan to sell in 3-4 years so I want to do everything right from the start so that I don’t encounter issues during my selling process but also don’t end up in negative equity having spent more on the house than I can sell it for.
What have others done in this situation? Would you just flatly discount the cost of a new boiler form the agreed price? Would you be satisfied just having a service done to show its currently operating safely?
For the electrics I think I need to have some kind of electrical survey done, I imagine the electrics to currently be adequate but not ideal, my concern would be that they might not be adequate in a couple of years’ time but I guess I can’t really account for that.
Any negotiation strategy? Seller reckons he doesn’t need to sell to buy so my concern would also be that he tells be to jog on and sticks the house back on the market which would be worst possible outcome as I’m in love with the house and I’ve kept an eye on the market and there is just nothing more out there!! I’d be a total dunce to pay agreed price if major electrical works and a new boiler need fitted though as they survey valued the house at what I’m paying, assuming everything is in working order.
Help!!!

Thanks Svalberg, I am glad we have somewhere to live in the meantime. I have just spoken to a local electrician who recommends a "periodical inspection" which will cost £150 which seems reasonable? He also reckons he can do it next week which is ideal.

Going to look into plumbers/ gas safe engineers now too.

I'm happy to pay for these checks, and I do really hope everything is adequate just so there is less hassle for all involved. Believe it or not, I actually don't want to renegotiate. I am happy with the price as long is everything is as it seems/ as we were told it is.

I think a poster previously also made a good point that with the money I can pay for a property (£115k is my max) I cant expect perfection with regards to boiler and electrics!!

I'm also a bit of a catastrophiser - can you tell!!

Surface mounted socket:

No problem OP - glad you can get an electrician out. We're doing our current house piecemeal at the moment, as we have things done to a room, we have the electrics re-wired in that room and the lighting for the room below.

You sound very stressed but also quite confused! These checks are not compulsory for owner-occupiers. You can ask for them to be done and if they haven't been you can decide to go ahead or not, but that's it. You need to decide if you want the house enough to deal with the risks.

Thanks, Svalbweg - in that case I hope surface mounted sockets too. I thought all sockets were like that!!

We managed to lose paperwork for our boiler when we moved out to have some work done elsewhere in the house. We paid £85 for a gas safety check and £20 for an indemnity (buyer also a FTB and lovely but jittery about the process.)
Solicitors cab be tardy with passing queries on so it might not be your buyer ignoring them.

with no exchange you have no due completion date, the latter isnt settled until the former is done. if you want to do all these checks the 21st wont happen , your seller needs time to move out.

boilers should be listed wirh the buulding regs departments at the council when installed, doesnt mean it still works. co detectors are £20 and everyone should buy one.

specialsubject, thank you although I was already fully aware of the buying process...

As previously mentioned, the 21st is a target date, I'm not in that much of a rush as I have 3 months tennancy but this is when the seller wants to complete. Also previously mentioned, I would have loved to have addressed this sooner but seller's solicitor sat on responses for 3 weeks despite everyone chasing.

Also aware of the importance of CO detectors but I'd rather be reassured my boiler isn't likely to omit CO rather than deal with it once its already setting off an alarm. That's kind of like trying to put out a fire with a smoke alarm.. its good you were alerted but it was probably preventable.

well, then you will be aware that all modern boilers are room sealed and fail safe if installed correctly. The CO alarm is good sense but if the boiler has been correctly installed then the odds of a leak are tiny.

bone idle solicitors are sadly par for the course. Or the golf course...

Afaik with the electrics, the regulations are not retrospective, so any wiring in nay house won't be compliant with current regs unless done in the last year.

Get the electrician to focus on what actually has to be altered, and what is unsafe (if anything) as opposed to what he could make money out of.

the only thing we had to change when we let our home, was to move a switch from outside the airing cupboard to inside. I now live in Belgium where sockets are normal in the bathrooms, so have to wonder what all the fuss was about!

As to surface mounted sockets, that doesn't mean that the electrics are unsafe at all, just that the walls may be too hard to chase out, especially if it's an older property like mine. Solid walls get surface mounted sockets - stone can be hard on drill bits! I have some surface mounted in the kitchen and the sockets are fine.

Thanks scaryteacher, the point you make about the walls could explain the surface mounted sockets as the house was built in 1834! Also when I first looked, I noted all of the cabling into the circuit board in the cellar was PVC covered rather than braided etc so I'm remaining optimistic the test will be ok and that although not brand new, the wiring isn't totally ancient. Also the sockets themselves seem like relatively new, fresh plastic casings rather than old, tatty, painted over a few times.

Best to be safe than sorry and know what I'm dealing with I guess!