Buyers enquiries

[Ann1979]

Hi, we’re selling our house and we’ve had the buyers enquiries. There’s two I’d like your advice on. 1. We have a valid EPC from when we brought our house but we have had double glazing put in since then. They’ve asked us to have the EPC re-done because of the work. Would you re-do this? 2. They’ve asked if when we brought our house 5 years ago whether we brought it at market value or from a relative. We did buy it at market value (it needed updating). I can’t work out why they’ve asked this question, any ideas? Thanks in advance

Enquiries can be bizarre. Unless they plan on renting out the property and therefore need a certain EPC level (though it's pretty low - an E I think) I don't know why they'd want a new EPC done. You've improved it after all, but a lot of assumptions are made in those reports so aren't the most accurate things.
As for the next question- it's pretty obvious surely if you paid market value or not as previous sold prices are readily available. And again, what difference would it make?
The answer to the first is 'no', if your EPC is still valid, and as you've said the second answer is 'market value'. Then just roll your eyes and hope they don't have any more silly questions.

The second one is because they're assessing the jump in prices since you bought to see if the price you want now is fair. It's a nonsense way of going about things though as that's how the market works, when we bought ours (December) 2019 the solicitor made the comment that it had gone up £40 in two years and we're we happy to risk it being 'overinflated'
What she didn't know was that the area went through massive regeneration and the house it's self had been re done with new kitchen and bathroom, the price we paid, looking at surrounding area was totally fair and has gone up further since

For the second enquiry I would tell them that when you bought it, it was very run down/needed gutting/updating with a brief run down of the work if relevant- we told our buyers that we had to have it retired, a new water system, reglazed, replastered etc. This then gives them an idea of when the major works were done and tells them that whilst they are paying for a move into condition house, you bought it at a price that reflected the project it was.

For the first, our estate agent did the new EPC.

Is the EPC valid if you've made changes though? No idea of the answer to that!

The second question is to ascertain whether your purchase was a transaction at an undervalue that could be set aside if your seller became bankrupt. If you bought it for market value reflecting its condition at the time, just say that.

We had the same question about market value, we had bought it cheaply but it needed gutting and starting again..... was not a problem we just went back with a yes, market value.