Anyone with LPG?

[Clevs]

We moved house in July 2022 to a property not on mains gas but has an LPG tank in the garden. We have had one gas delivery since moving in. One day last week a rep from that gas company dropped in when he was 'just passing' and said he needed to speak to us about the gas tank. Apparently it doesn't conform to current regulations and needs to be moved - either underground or 3m from any boundary or fixed structure over 5' tall. This means digging the garden up or having it resited in the middle of the garden. Apparently from August they will not legally be able to deliver gas to us as it doesn't comply.

My question is this...should we have known about this before we moved from either the solicitor or surveyor? On the day of completion we picked the keys up from the vendors at the property rather than the estate agents and it was briefly mentioned to my husband that the tank was illegal and needed to be moved but that was it. That was the first we had heard about it.

The vendors definitely knew about it as they mentioned it on the day of completion and the bloke from the gas company said he'd spoken to them about it and they were 'going to leave it until the property was sold'.

So should our solicitor or surveyor have known about this?

Anyone?

The vendors mentioned it on the day of completion to whom? To you? Then you did know about it surely. Shitty time to mention it in the day of completion but I'm not sure you will have grounds if it was mentioned prior to actual completion

As buyers, if not familiar with LPG, I would have taken my self off to www.calor.co.uk and looked up the regulations. Your surveyor should have picked this up if you had a full structural survey (homebuyers probably wouldn't).
I'd take the opportunity to review your energy use and decide if you wish to continue with calor and if so consider an underground tank to free up space in your garden

This has been a well publicised issue afaik. Look at the property description, your survey etc. to see if it was mentioned.

Unfortunately I think it is your responsibility to be curious about any potential issues. Hope you get it sorted.

It wasn’t illegal though in July last year, it will only become Illegal in august this year?

This implies the cost of an underground tank installation is about 2K :

www.theheatinghub.co.uk/lpg-boiler-installation-fuel-tank-costs

So probably worth asking yourself whether it is worth pursuing.

It was when we collected the keys on the day of completion. So after all monies had been transferred etc. and the house was legally ours.

That is similar to the quote we have had. It's not the cost that's the problem, it's the fact that we didn't know anything about it until it was too late.

But again the tank was fully Compliant with building regs at the time of purchase.

Our vendors were told two years ago by the gas company that it had to be moved and that it was also past it's 20 year lifespan but chose not to do anything about it and sold the house knowing it was illegal.

Don't really understand what your objective is then if it isn't to recover some sort of costs.

Because we're going to either have it slap bang in the middle of the garden or dig a lot up to house it underground.

But it wasn’t illegal. I’m not sure why you keep writing it was. It was absolutely not. You know this, you even wrote it in your op. The bloke told you. The regs don’t come in till august.

come august it will not meet building regs. It is even now not illegal.

just put it underground for goodness sake, all you see is the green cap. Ours is underground. It’s not a big deal.

Op an accurate statement would be

they sold the house with a fully functioning tank in situ that met current building regs. They were aware rhe regs would change 13 months later and didn’t inform you. You failed to educate yourselves and didn’t know the regs would change 13 months later.

they have not done anything wrong. Part of the selling process is not for them to spoon feed you information on regulatory changes in the future.

just have it put underground, as said, all you see is the cap.

It is unfortunate that none of the searches came up with this problem prior to purchase. You could have a nag at your solicitor, but I doubt whether it would get you anywhere. When I sold nearly 3 years ago, I had to fill in a very complex form detailing everything under the sun; and I was certainly asked about our oil tank: when it was installed, had it been repaired etc. I am assuming the people you bought from had to give details so the age of the tank should have been noticed and queried.

At my new property I have LPG with a very efficient modern combi-boiler. The tank is underground in a part of the front garden that is detached from the house. Underground is a good option if you have a choice.

Ours is underground in the front garden. You wouldn’t even know it was there. If ours was above ground, I would be paying to change this - building regs or no building regs. However, I do think your sellers were a bit sneaky. They were aware of the change in the law so should have told you pre-exchange.

@Beercrispsandnuts

I keep saying it's illegal because that's what we've been told. Both the previous occupiers and the rep from the gas company said that it IS illegal, not that it WILL be. So that's what we we're led to believe.

However, if the regulations don't apply until August then we've been misinformed. So that changes my stance on it because if it complied at the time of completion then of course nobody is going to say anything. I'm just quoting what we were told from two different sources.

Yes, maybe we should have done our own research before we moved. But when you pay a solicitor to research things with regulations, building regs etc. I'd expect it to be flagged that we would have to sort it out in the near future.

Personally I'd prefer it underground so it's out of sight, but I don't really want to have to dig up half the garden because it will never look the same again. So we are exploring other options at the moment to see what will work best for us.