Buying an older house and we can’t get certificates. House sale stalled.

[babycupid]

We are first time buyers purchasing a house about 60 years old. The survey pulled up the following issues

New roof installed in 2018. There appears to be no no building reg. certificate available for this work.
Cavity wall insulation has been installed - no paperwork available
New windows in 2018 - no Fensa certification available
Electrical rewire and new boiler in 2018 - again no gas safe or building regs certs for this.

The seller bought this property in 2023 so why wasn’t all this picked up in his purchase? To add difficulty he has since died and the property is now being marketed by his family.

My solicitor is awaiting responses to the enquiries but it all seems to have stalled. Is there a way around this by getting certificates retrospectively? Really don’t want to lose this house at this late stage.

Any help is appreciated

Your solicitor may/should suggest an indemnity policy, which should be paid for by the seller.

The previous sale in 2023 may have done an indemnity policy.

But I'd be very wary of that much work with no certification, personally. You won't be able to get certification retrospectively which means when you come to sell the house, you'll have to provide an indemnity policy for your purchaser.

Could they get an EICR report and a gas safe inspection done to at least cover that?
Would CIGA (cavity insulation guarantee agency) have a copy of the insulation guarantee?
I’m not so worried about the windows to be honest.
Again, the roof, can it be inspected and a report provided by a structural engineer or roofer?

Im worried about all of this now, it’s not a forever house and we don’t want to be caught out when trying to sell ourselves in the future.

If it’s not a forever home, pull out. This is going to be a headache when you eventually sell.

I’m not so worried about the windows to be honest.

You might not be, but the person who wants to buy it from you when you sell (seeing as it's not a forever home) probably will.

Can you not see that if it's a problem for you and your purchase now, it'll be exactly the same for others when you come to sell?

When we bought our house there were new windows but no fensa certificate. We didn't bother to query it but the windows are not the best.
There was no gas certifcate and a relatively new boiler, so we got a boiler engineer to come round and inspect it.

A lot of these things can be got retrospectively by the sellers

Fensa is a phone call to building control, They’ll go round and have a look ( a few hundred in costs )

Gas cert etc through relevant professional
The roof, if just retiled it doesn’t need Bregs. If the whole structure then a structural engineer and building control can check

Ask your solicitor to ask the sellers to arrange

Whoever is selling can get fensa certificates (provided they were fitted by a fensa registered company) off the fensa website. I’d lost ours for our newish French doors and wanted it for our sale. Think it was about £30 for a copy.

Indemnity policies are worth nothing, but a nice tick box for the solicitors. The issue will be when you sell.

Have you ordered the local authority searches yet?
Electrical work, new boiler and cavity wall insulation, should appear on those documents.
FENSA certificates may also be listed there as well.
Are you living in rented accommodation at the moment? It is not compulsory for sellers to have Gas Safety and electrical safety certificates for a residential property (this is only for rented properties). It would be up to the buyer to arrange these, if you would like them, and not the seller.

Agree, if you have company name, and they’re registered, ask for a copy. If not I’d be wary. A friend of my husband’s fitted new windows himself and he’s a bit of a bodger to say the least. I’d want to make sure jobs like this were done to standard and paperwork was there for when I wanted to sell.

What's the worst that could happen? As an older buyer I find all this 'nannying' over certificates for this that and the other completely baffling. You've had a house-buying survey of some sort, what did it pick up?