Exchange suddenly delayed; Buyer now wants electrical survey

[Pinotpleasure]

I’m really dismayed. We were due to exchange tomorrow, 18th December before both sets of solicitors stop conveyancing work until 4th January. Our buyer originally wanted to complete before Christmas and we’ve done all we can to facilitate that.

There is no chain as we’ve already moved 3 hours away - but we staged the house whilst on the market. The keys are with the estate agent so we’ve never met the purchaser whom I think is a ‘mature’ woman, possibly divorced or widowed and currently afaik staying with relatives.

We’ve been told the purchaser is a cash buyer, but she understandably had a property survey at the beginning of November and we heard nothing about how it went so presumably was satisfactory. Searches are back with her solicitor, all is ok and we were due to exchange and complete this week so she could move in for Christmas.

On 7th December buyer requested via her solicitor that she wished ‘to proceed to exchange of contracts this side of Christmas but with completion for the New Year”. We agreed that this was ok.

On 10th December our solicitor sent this to us “The Buyer would also like access to enable the contract and test the electrical system prior to exchange, as she understands it has not been checked for 20 years. Do you have any objection to this?”

We felt we couldn’t refuse (we used to rent the house out but it does have a new ‘consumer unit’ (fuse box) but only discovered late yesterday afternoon when checking e-mails on my phone that no, we are now not exchanging by tomorrow as they couldn’t get an electrician round until Saturday.

I feel so anxious! I don’t know why this wasn’t raised when they had their survey in the first week of November and I’m so annoyed by this very late delay. The buyer knows we have moved out. I strongly suspect that she is going to try to get us to reduce the price to pay for the house to be re-wired. I have no idea how often a house needs to be re-wired or how much it costs (small terrace house just outside Greater London).

Btw:We had already reduced the asking price by 10k then another 5k after the buyer viewed and offered (although she wanted an extra 5k off before negotiating). A comparable house 6 doors away sold in February for 7k more than the price we’ve agreed and this was an empty ‘old lady’ house which needs totally updating inside.

So......what would you do if she comes back asking for us to reduce the price further (which we don’t want to do)?

Surely you would have had an electrical safety check done before renting the house out? So you could use that.

Depends how much you want to sell, but in the circumstance you describe I wouldn’t entertain any further money off. Rewiring is messy and a pain but a normal expectation if wiring is 20 years old, and the electrical survey won’t tell her much more (although will identify anything immediately unsafe).

I have no advice but wanted to offer sympathy..we are going through the same thing. Our buyer has stalled at every step - they had a damp survey done after their survey. Obviously the damp expert found damp (in every house) and we dropped by £3k after this, after, like you, already accepting a £10k lower offer on house. I think you just need to accept it isn't going to happen until after Christmas and try to put it out of your mind. The problem is that these things are largely out of our hands. The only thing thr electrical survey could show is that it doesn't meet current legislation. So the buyer would either back out of purchase, or ask you to pay for any upgrading work (maybe £1k for greater london). Ps we are also in Greater London, Upminster, so good luck!!

Absolutely not. We bought a house that needed totally rewiring but it's something that you have to swallow if you want it doing. That's like suggesting you replace the carpet because it's stained. It's fit for purpose but maybe just needs updating, which is her responsibility as the new owner if that's what she wants doing. Unless it comes back that it's dangerous and not fit for purpose then absolutely do not entertain any further reductions. She sounds like a CF

Unless it needs a rewire...then it's about £7k for greater London..and that's a bloody nightmare! But I doubt it would need that surely xx

@theantsgomarchin

Absolutely not. We bought a house that needed totally rewiring but it's something that you have to swallow if you want it doing. That's like suggesting you replace the carpet because it's stained. It's fit for purpose but maybe just needs updating, which is her responsibility as the new owner if that's what she wants doing. Unless it comes back that it's dangerous and not fit for purpose then absolutely do not entertain any further reductions. She sounds like a CF

Exactly x

I really feel for you we were meant to be exchanging really soon and have recently answered their solicitors queries - nothing major at all being flagged up but half expecting them to ask for a reduction. We accepted £10,000 less so won’t even entertain it. If you can afford it I wouldn’t drop any more. Our surveyor advised us that the property we are in the process of buying hasn’t had an electricity check in the last 10 years but has a newish ‘fuse box’ so we will get this checked when we hopefully move in and have not asked for a reduction. I hope it all works out for you it’s a very stressful time I know.

You can guarantee it won’t meet current standards if it’s 20 years old - guidelines change pretty regularly (maybe even annually?). The issue is whether anything is unsafe though, which is not the same as outdated.

Frustrating situation OP.
Any further negotiation & i'd just say that the condition is already accounted for in the agreed (already reduced) price, & can we please move to exchange ASAP.
They will find something - even an electrical inspection of a brand new build will still find something that one electrician is happy with, while another isn't, but If you've rented it out fairly recently & had it tested then it won't be in need of a full rewire.

It doesn't need to meet current standards unless it is being built/re-wired now. 20 year old wiring is likely to be absolutely fine. You would have more of an issue if it is 50+ years old because the insulation might be rubber and likely to have perished.

buyer is looking for excuses to spin it out.

Probably spent the deposit money on crates of prosecco.

"On 10th December our solicitor sent this to us “The Buyer would also like access to enable the contract and test the electrical system prior to exchange, as she understands it has not been checked for 20 years. Do you have any objection to this?”"

I assume as you rented the property out that you had the annual electrical safety certificate which means the system definitely HAS been checked in the last 20 years. Have you told them this and sent a copy of the latest cert.

Thank you for all your messages - and it does seem that we should be firm in declining any requests for a further discount.

We rented the house out whilst we were overseas for a few years and returned to the UK at the beginning of last year. My husband replaced some of the plug sockets for new ones to include the USB phone/tablet charging ports. Afaik we never needed to have an annual electrical safety check (the estate agency managed the letting) although we did have a gas one annually. I think the legislation recently changed for letting re; an electrical safety certificate?

The above suggestions are great: if there is a request/demand to reduce the price we will tell the buyer that unless the electricity supply is deemed dangerous, we won’t entertain it. (I’m now wondering if she has the deposit to exchange?!!!!).

I've just got an EICR done on ours and it tests against 2018 regulations and comes back as a fail normally if electrics pre-date that so be careful how you phrase things. Ours cost £288 (by London, 3 bed house) and produced £1150 of work to get a pass which took a few weeks. We paid all of it but refused to budge on survey and they accepted that. It will hold things up a bit if work is done and cost maybe £1,000 ish - our wiring is around 20 years old and we also had some old wiring outside which probably added a couple of hundred to our quote.

I've just got an EICR done on ours and it tests against 2018 regulations and comes back as a fail normally if electrics pre-date that

People don't get rewires done every time the regs change though, so that is ridiculous.

Depends how much you want to sell and what you can afford. We're in a similar position. Sold start of October but we relocated due to jobs so house been empty for 4 weeks. Waiting on sale completing. Also they are cash buyers. We also got another mortgage and have now moved into new house, We had hoped old house would complete before Xmas but not happening. I personally would be ok with taking a few k off to complete as from next month we'll be paying 2 mortgages so would make sense to get the sale through.

the rules for rental EICRs are badly written and don't make sense.

The Government says "Ensure national standards for electrical safety are met. These are set out in the 18th edition of the ‘Wiring Regulations’, which are published as British Standard 7671."

So they say they are to be checked against the latest standards. For example, consumer units made of any material other than steel are not now permitted to be installed in dwelling houses, but are perfectly safe in offices, shops and factories. Prior to January 2016 they were permitted in new domestic installations.

However, the report is not required to certify that the installation meets current standards (which is what is is measured against), but if remedial work is required because it is dangerous or potentially dangerous, which is a different thing and includes personal opinion since there is no definition.

"Not to current standards" used to be used for things that were safe but didn't meet the latest revision.

It doesn't work now because it might be a 2017 or even a 1980 installation (which is probably OK) or a 1922 installation (which would be unsafe) and the government says the installation must be measured against the latest standard.

The government says "The electrical safety industry has established competent person schemes. Membership of these will not be compulsory to ensure there is no further pressure placed on the industry, nor undue burden placed on inspectors and testers." so you are not required to use a person who is a member of a competent person scheme. They can declare themselves to be competent if you ask.

I have noticed over the years that it’s the solicitor that drag up these last minute requests as I presume they may see themselves as liable if they don’t detect a problem.

But the ‘problem’ with any building that is not new build is that a number of building codes and safety features may not be satisfactory. An example of this is that most pre war terraces would fail building regulations on the design of the staircases, and most people would never think to require the staircase to be replaced.

If a ‘problem’ is detected then you are at the mercy of the trades to rectify this and they too will want to cover themselves and conduct the work to the letter.

However as someone has mentioned above this would lead to a vast amount of work to bring everything up to date every few years and some of the work is totally unnecessary unless it's patently dangerous.

I owned many properties and if a problem was brought up at the last minute I used to get my solicitor to contact the purchasers solicitor and advise I would only remedy anything that they could prove was specifically dangerous (and excluding any requirement to fulfil current Building Regs on an old property). Usually the solicitor didn’t want to spend their time wading through all 16 approved documents and presumably advised the purchaser accordingly.

But only you know how much the potential buyer wants your property and how eager you are to sell.

Btw:We had already reduced the asking price by 10k then another 5k after the buyer viewed and offered (although she wanted an extra 5k off before negotiating). A comparable house 6 doors away sold in February for 7k more than the price we’ve agreed and this was an empty ‘old lady’ house which needs totally updating inside.

What does your estate agent say about sales in the area - this is very manipulative, sellers lower price etc etc etc for a supposed 'cash' buyer but whilst fannying around for their solicitor/demands, could be missing better offers. If sales are high perhaps consider putting it back on the market. Or at least making it known you are thinking about it.

It is cheeky for them to pull this after so long. I agree with sticking to the price unless something drastic & dangerous comes up.

I'm currently working on arranging an electrical survey (and a gas & plumbing one, but we're nowhere near exchange, we've only just had our offer accepted last week & it's just easier to arrange these now with no one in the property while the searches happen) and I wouldn't think to ask for a reduction or work to be done unless something major safety-wise comes up. I actually put in our 'best & final offer' letter that we'd be running extra surveys for our information as we know there is modernization and repairs to do, and would only be concerned enough to discuss it them if a major safety concern or an issue with the lenders came up.