Electrics issues - who pays, vendor or buyer?

[LlamaLikesRepeatingThings]

Hello,

Our mortgage company won't give a mortgage until we had some reports done. We've got those now and are awaiting an update from the mortgage company.

The electrics report was one such report; it has idenfied 2 C1 (urgent, dangerous) issues - a fuse box needing upgrading and the earth bonding to the board upgrading. Total cost of all remedial works is £450.

Who should pay for this? Should we ask the vendor to? It's not a lot and we're keen to avoid any more hold ups.

TIA

See if the vendor will drop the price by enough to pay for the works should you proceed to purchase?

I'd ask for the money to be deducted from the price. Is the vendor still living in the property or is it empty.

It's part of the negotiations. Did you offer full asking price and found no other work needed to be done? In which case, ask the vendor to reduce the price accordingly... but they don't have to. Depends who is most desperate to proceed!
In my experience, it is more usual to find several things that need addressing and to ask for a price reduction to reflect the cost of most (but not all) of it. So the seller meets you half way. Clearly they are less likely to want to do this if your offer was below asking price or they have another buyer sniffing round.
For most people unfortunately £450 isn't a massive amount in the great scheme of house buying/ maintenance so don't die in a ditch over who is 'right' or 'wrong'. I'd start by asking the vendor to pay and see what the answer is.

I've just exchanged today after negotiations about this. My vendor happily dropped the price to cover the approx cost of the rewire that needs doing.

It's empty, and we offered 4k over asking price.

In that case definitely say you didn't know it had these problems when you offered so please will they either sort it before exchange or give you the discount so you can sort it after completion.

Ordinarily I'd say look at the bigger picture. If you really want the house, don't annoy the vendor by expecting a discount. After all, all houses will have issues, like it or not!

However in light of the fact you paid over the asking price and it's just £450 I'd ask them to pay for it. Either fix it before you move in or knock off the price.

Why did you pay over the asking price? Was there a bidding war? What's the likelihood of them dropping you for another buyer if you demand this?

Bidding war, but I doubt they will ditch us for another buyer - the bank refused to offer a mortgage until these reports, anyone else would have issues too. The thing is the valuation report states we need an electrics report and for remedial work to be done depending on what it said - they might hold a retention or refuse the mortgage.

See if you can get a reduction, or meet 1/2 the costs but i wouldnt push it for that. Its a small amount in the scheme of things. We lost a sale and purchase a few years ago over s9mething similar because we didnt see why we should pay for our own fuse box to be updated and the one in the house we were going into! Whilst we were arguing our buyers pulled out to buy another house which had suddenly dropped a lot in price. I was livid with myself!

This wasn't an arsecovering home buyers report though, this was the valuation report which refuses to lend anything unless outstanding issues are sorted.

Lack of main bonding is hardly a C1 that's reserved for exposed live parts etc, and fuse box needs upgrading doesn't contravene any regs unless there's a specific reason. Main bonding would cost tens of pounds unless the gas and water supply are hard to reach from the electric intake.
Sounds like the electrical report was done by someone who wanted the work. Every coded item should be accompanied by a regulation number that it contravenes, otherwise they could just code your tea mugs for not being clean and your loo for not flushing properly

As an example this link discusses a worse situation then yours and they're discussing whether it's c2 or c3 for no main bonding
www.electriciansforums.co.uk/threads/no-main-bonding-eicr-code.60096/