Buying a house and had made an offer on the basis of there being a boiler installed less than a year ago.

Vendor has no paperwork for boiler (so no guarantee although I’m unsure whether these are passed between sellers) and the installation has not got a GasSafe registration with the council

How much would you reduce your offer by if any?

You can reduce the offer by as much as you want.

The seller doesn’t have to accept it.

I’d get someone to look at the boiler and give you an idea of when it was installed (they often write on them somewhere. Plus get a quote for the gas safe certificate to be done retrospectively.

If there’s no evidence of bolier age then reduce offer by cost of replacement.

Boiler guarantee is normally carried over to the new owner for boilers.

What make is it? If it’s a combi then they don’t have huge warranties anyway.

The lack of Gas Safe is more serious. Was it installed in a Corgi period though? Doesnt mean it’s not safe but I would make a point of it and I would say you have a couple of choices:

1. pay a gas safe fitter to do an inspection at the same time you get a survey done

2. make your offer subject to them obtaining a proper gas safe certificate

3. make it clear you are knacking off the price of a new boiler + installation from your offer

4. Agree to have the amount from 3 withheld until after you have had the boiler inspected and the proper certification obtained and you may want to take out one of those monthly warranty thingies if the inspection is okay.

give them some choices:

Proof it was installed by a registered engineer and a retrospective registration made with the council – obviously at their cost

A retrospective inspection by a gas safe registered engineer and retrospective retrospective made with the council – at their cost

A retrospective inspection by a gas safe registered engineer and retrospective retrospective made with the council – at your cost after completion and a cost to be agreed between you. I would advise that if you want to go down this route to keep things flowing you need to pirce this at the cost of a brand new boler install plus 50% for your inconvenience

Boiler was installed last October (we know this as the electrical work carried out at the same time was part P registered)

We were initially told that a gas safe certificate would be provided as there was no paperwork for the boiler and we were happy to accept this. We’ve now been told that they aren’t providing one as it isn’t a legal requirement (nice of our solicitors to share this info with us I’m not exactly sure what we’re paying them for)

It’s a combi boiler, not sure on make photographs are at home.

I’d be knocking off the cost of a new boiler plus 50% time wasted tax then

Doesn’t matter if there’s a legal requirement for the certificate, if it isn’t there you can choose to walk away/revise your offer.

We’ve now been told that they aren’t providing one as it isn’t a legal requirement

If that is their attitude I would look for somewhere else. What else have they scrimped on and potentially done illegally?

If I had spent £X,000 on a new boiler 9 months ago I am pretty sure I would remember who did it.

It may not be a legal requirement but it is a common courtesy to provide such documentation and claiming it’s ‘not a legal requirement’ and back tracking from previously saying they had one does make them sound like they have something to hide.

It’s a buyers market. Tell them to find the documents or find a new buyer.

I’d be a lot less bothered than you seem to be. A gas safety cert costs me £40 +vat. The warranty would be nice to have though, but I wouldn’t let either get close to a dealbreaker. If you really piss off a vendor they’ll find a way to make it up to you which usually involves smelly things in hard to find places. Be happy.

Original occupier is deceased, vendors are her children.

More annoyed at the solicitors than the vendors to be honest, as on 24 June I was told there would be a certificate provided and only find out today when I queried where it was that they wouldn’t provide one.

oh and if you get guarantees for things like damp proofing get your solicitor to confirm the company still exists. I fell foul of this one a few years back on my 1st flat purchase. Sounds good being told by the vendor they still have 10 years left on the damp proofing guarantee but it wasn’t until I was going through it to claim last year that I noticed the guarantee was supposed to be signed over to the new owners which it hadn’t the last 2 times and the company had gone bust many years ago anyway.

When we had the work done again we discovered that the original company hadn’t actually done the work they claimed to have done as there was no injection holes when the plaster and render were stripped off.

being installed by a gas safe installer is very important as it’s your safety that is at risk and your insurer may not pay out. I have seen some very dodgy and illegal combi boiler installations over the last couple of years. If in doubt then budget to have it brought up to standard or completely reinstalled. Also if the building is listed in any way then make sure any new combi boiler installations (and other works) have had listed building consent applied for.

We have an installation in our shared building that had no listed consent, was installed through a wall we had just paid to have re-rendered and sealed and unsafely with a 12mm dia rubber condensate drain that was allowed to form a U bend outside which leads me to believe it was a DIY installation as no registered fitter would do that.

EDIT: Just read the bit about the original owner being deceased. Offer (in a nice way) to pay for an installation check now and see what they say. Would at least give you peace of mind. There should be some details of who installed it inside the boiler casing.

as on 24 June I was told there would be a certificate provided

in writing?

I know when i bough my first flat in Scotland my solicitor with held some of the sale money untill the boiler was serviced and found to be in good working order. It cost me £387 for service, repair and gas safe cert for the boiler so my solicitor re-imbursed me that and gave the sellers the difference.

Flat was sold with gas central heating, which would seem to mean it is sold with safe and working gas central heating. The flat i purchased was empty for some time before i bought it hence why i got the work done then was re-imbursed.

I would guess that you could ask you solicitor to request this information as a condition of sale which puts the onous back on the sellers, they simply have to prove the boiler is in a safe and good working condition and meets all requirements at cost to them.

Unless she died of carbon monoxide poisoning I wouldn’t make a fuss.

Shouldn’t your solicitor be asking for a gas safety certificate as part of the documentation of the sale?

We had to have some electrical work re-certified when we sold our house because we had lost ours and the electrician’s copy had faded over time so you couldn’t read the date on it. We also needed to provide a duplicate FENSA certificate for some double glazed windows.

Phone your solicitor. Let them chase it.

Was told in an email

Solicitors are a monumental waste of space.

I think if I was that concerned I would pay for and arrange the check then use the results of that to negotiate any reduction

However assuming hundreds of thousands for the house is it worth quibbling about a hundred or two?

True, but as you are paying them they should be your monumental waste of space.

Yes but the gas man is cheaper for a retrospective inspection than the solicitor to chase the original!

The solicitor should be doing it anyway as part of the sale.

The conversation with our solicitor went like this.

Them : “We still need to provide the FENSA and electrical certification for the buyer’s solicitor.”

Me : “I’ve lost.”

Them : “Well sort out duplicates or a re-test pronto or it could all fall apart.”

The vendor of the house you are after is going to have to produce this no matter who is buying it.

If you are a 1st time buyer struggling to get the 20-25% deposit together then the cost of a boiler can seem like quite a big thing. Over the years you will soon learn (the hard way) that it’s just one of those things. But you will still have a small tear in your eye when handing over a couple of grand that could have been a nice bike 🙁

Whatever you do get an inspection done for your own peace of mind. Preferably before. Find a local friendly and recommended gas fitter and he may give you a good price on it as it could be securing future business for himself on your annual servicing.

And bearing in mind for this house that the cost of a new boiler will be at least 2% of the purchase price it’s not an inconsequential amount

The solicitors seem to think this is something I should be discussing with the vendor, I believe it’s their job.

It is their job.

We had to produce all of our boiler documentation (it was 4 years old) but I knew where that was 😉

It is not something you should be discussing directly with the vendors. I would have said your solicitor should be doing it at this stage. Enquiries and offers at an earlier stage would have been through the estate agent. You need it all in writing really. But do whatever keeps it friendliest.

We’ve never met the vendors and don’t have any contact details so how I’m supposed to negotiate with them is anyone’s guess.

Bear in mind this issue only surfaced yesterday when we picked up our final contract and all the associated paperwork (offer accepted 27 may) you have to question the competence of the solicitors.

I wouldn’t get your pants in too much of a bunch over this. 😉

Your solicitor should speak to theirs and they should sort out the paperwork.

Isn’t moving house meant to be the most stressful thing that you have to deal with after death, marriage and replacing the bearings in a Specialized FSR?

So you’re suggesting I change the bearings on my stumpy to get some perspective ? 🙂

Yes. It will make you cry.

Does seem to be a storm in a teacup…

Lucky you if the difference between having a boiler that’s got 4+ years left on the guarantee and no guarantee is so inconsequential.

Saga continues, when the solicitor says the lack of any sort of paperwork is “not a problem” (exact words) you start to wonder what else they’ve thought is not a problem.

there is no legal requirement to have any documentation with any gas appliance. the exception is in rented properties when a safety certicficate is required annually ( a certificate unlike an MOT in that you still get it even if the appliance is unsafe)
there is no leagl requirement to register a boiler or any other appliance with gas safe or building control though it is a relatively common practice where installation has met all building regs.. and now the bombshell… if the boiler was fitted by the householder he/ she does not have to be gas safe registered.

I bought a house last year, it was a repo. No documentation of any kind except a fresh set of deeds. Oh and no keys either.

You might not get a Gas Safe certificate as it may be that they replaced the boiler, but not the valves on the radiators (you would only get a Gas Safe certificate if it was inspected straight away afterwards and was found to comply. I am pretty sure if a boiler has been installed in the last 2 or 3 years, the radiator valves must be switched to thermostatic ones or you will not comply fully with the regulations – someone correct me if I am wrong here but I am pretty sure I am right).

I would not let it affect my offer on the house too much. I would take out yearly plumbing/boiler/gas cover with someone like British Gas or Scottish Power. As part of their cover they typically provide an annual boiler service.

I have the cover. Have called them up on bank holiday Mondays in February at 10 at night when the boiler has packed in and there has been no cost (other then the monthly charge of course).

By the way, I don’t work for any of the energy companies.

working on a house today, bought for cash no keys.. no probs though as it had no windows either.. solicitors vebdors and buyers can get all preciuos about paperwork that is worthless in reality damp proof guarantees from companies that dont exist, nothing in life is guaranteed other than birth and death what you do in the middle is up to you to enjoy or get uptight over.

i’m a conveyancing solicitor and quite frankly am shocked if your solicitor doesn’t think its his responsibility to sort this documentation. if you are buying with a mortage he will need confirmation that all matters that require building reg’s are in place before he can sign off for the mortagee so it is very much ‘a legal requirement’ in this context. don’t be fobbed off with an offer of defective title insurance for lack of br’s as this will only cover the unlikely event that your local authority takes enforcement action for lack of br’s approval and will not cover putting matters right if the boiler is duff. tell your solicitor to pull his finger out and insist on the documents.

They can’t go down the indemnity route anyway because vendors have spoken to the council today. I already told them indemnity was a waste of time anyway as I wanted something to show that it was safe which indemnity wouldn’t do.

Oh, and did I mention that our solicitors are also the vendor’s solicitors, a fact that we weren’t aware of until the past week!

there is no leagl requirement to register a boiler or any other appliance with gas safe or building control

This is incorrect for recent installations, it is a legal requirement to notify the local authority.