So, buying a house and when we first viewed it, the seller said there was a HETAS certificate for the wood burner. We’re now getting close to completion and it transpires that there is no certificate.

Other than the bear faced lying, how much of a problem is this really? Another bloody indemnity has been suggested but I don’t see how that gets us around the possible issue with invalidating house insurance.

How close are you to completion? You could ask them to put in a building notice get it inspected and signed off by building control?

Either that or knock a grand off the price to cover any works you have to do to make it safe and legit.

Ask your insurer if it invalidates their insurance

If it does I’d be doing as martinhutch suggests ^^.
If not decide whether you want to jeopardise the sale for the sake of £whatever it costs to sort

That’s the thing, people say is a few grand worth losing a house over but there has to be a limit. We’ve already given them an easy out on two or three things that weren’t done properly as well as going halves on the cost or remedial works.

We’ve been asking for this cert for 8 weeks now. Suddenly, they don’t have one. It’s making me suspicious of everything else now. Yes, we need to buy a house, but they need to sell one as well.

Ask/insist the vendor submits a regularisation application to Building Control ( basically a retrospective building regs app); assuming it was installed correctly it should get turned round in max 2 weeks.

If you like the house, just buy it. A piece of paper doesn’t guarantee anything.

Surely the issue is more along the lines of how do you know the bloody thing is safe?

Forget the cash issues – get them to get it certified or discount the price but don’t light it till you know it’s safe. It’s a carbon monoxide generator ffs.

Heats qualified here btw.

Sounds to melike they may have spent 8 weeks trying to obtain one retrospectivly and failed.

How ever theres also the possibility its been in since pre 2002…….they are not new things these stoves.. My house was built with one in 1950.

Surely the issue is more along the lines of how do you know the bloody thing is safe?

A piece of paper doesn’t mean it’s safe.

Sounds to melike they may have spent 8 weeks trying to obtain one retrospectivly and failed.

Or just ignoring the issue and assuming you’ll just buy it.

Personally it wouldn’t bother me at all, I can just check it once I own the place.

HETAS, those things that keep you warm in the north east?

Installed December 2013. I think they’ve spent the last 8 weeks sat on their hands hoping we’ll forget about it. We’ll check it’s safe once we’re in and not light it until then. However, without the piece of paper, house insurance is invalid.

Seems like they’ve had it fitted on the cheap, probably by a “mate” so who knows what corners have been cut. Checking it once we’re in is one thing but what if it cost a bundle to put it right. Why should we be out of pocket because they’ve skimped on things?

Other issues have been covered in previous threads like them trying to claim the outbuilding is permitted development

Presumably they intended to just get a HETAS bloke over to peer up the liner and sign it off, and found out pretty quickly that most would simply refuse to certify, or worse, have turned up and declared it unsafe!

The only thing you can sensibly do is demand they get it approved by building control.

If you try to get sorted after you move in, and BC want a different hearth, additional vent or a liner (if they haven’t bothered with one), then it soon adds up into £££ to put right.

Exactly my concern.

Tell them that as they lied to you you feel like you should pull out of the sale, and ask them what they think they should do to make it right.

Personally I don’t like being lied to and it would really piss me off. Who knows what else they have lied about!?

He is right call them liars as that is bound to make things between you go so much better.

TBH we do not know if it is true as any number of explanation is possible but that really wont help at all.

Just in case anyone was following the saga, we did pull out. There were way too many things that hadn’t been done properly.

I only just saw the thread resurrection and was about to say pull the hell out of that one! Whether right or wrong – I would have done the same.

Thanks. Interestingly, neither of us have given that house a second thought since. Really does feel like a lucky escape.