Gas and electricity safety certificates on sale

[Nickynicky61]

I’m currently selling my late father’s flat which I have rented out for the last 5 years. First offer accepted in August. Chain on house I’m buying has collapsed because of the delay caused by my buyer. She has now turned round and said she wants gas and electricity safety certificates. I refused to pay for these. If anything arises from these inspections can I refuse to negotiate a reduction in the purchase price on the ground that the transaction has been unnecessarily delayed ?

I’m not a renter - but don’t you need these certificates to let a house ?

Reasonable: asking buyer to pay for gas and electric checks.

Unreasonable: expecting conveyancing to go quickly or refusing to negotiate if there is a genuine issue.

Presumably the house is now vacant and these may no longer be up to date.

Right but they’re not required when selling a house and it’s normally something the buyer pays for.

Are you for real?

You took money of people for 5 years, without a clue whether the flat was safe to live in?

Plus your buildings insurance would be null and void, if you even have any?

A EICR is around £150 lasts for 5 years and a Gas safety cert is about £60 per year.

Gas check is pretty normal now for a seller to provide, not an electrical check though - most people selling have an annual boiler service, which is good enough.

If you've been renting it for 5 years you should already have had an electrical check done. That check is valid for 10 years I believe. Perhaps 5. I can't remember without checking.

Your gas safety check should have been done annually.

Both are legal requirements for English landlords. I'm just assuming you're in England.

If you hadn't done them then you've been unsafely and illegally letting the property.

If there's no tenant now they are no longer required. You only need these certificates/safety checks when there are tenants.

There's no requirement for them for a property sale. Often proof of an upto date boiler service can help the sale go through and lately solicitors seem to ask for proof of a gas boiler service. Any other checks would be for the buyer to arrange and pay for. Just like their survey.

As others have said, you should already have these certificates.
The buyer quite reasonably wants reassurance that that gas and electrics are safe! Normally the seller would get a gas safe certificate. For electrics a seller might well push back on this... but you as a landlord should have one!

You are being extremely unreasonable.

there is no legal requirement to have either a gas or electric certificate when selling a property, irrespective of that fact it may have been let prior to sale (the certificates for when it was let might have since expired!)

that said, it is obviously a topic for negotiation,

• will the buyer walk away over a few £000?
• will the seller lose a buyer over a few £000?

who has the stronger nerve and won't break first?
but it is not fair to label a seller as "unreasonable" because they won't pay for it. The only person who ultimately benefits from either is the buyer who gains some comfort over the short term status of the property they are buying.