To buy or not to buy? repo risks

Minky2Slice

Hi,

Am in the process of buying a repo.
Sellers are refusing to let us have elec/gas/heating/water tested (even though gas and elec is not disconnected, just switched off)
How much of a financial risk are we taking if we buy without testing?
Maybe this is a silly question, but really what is the worst that can happen?
I need to weight up the options really and make a decision
Besides the boiler possibly being defective, i know a new boiler can be in the region of £4/5k.
Does anybody have any ideas of what possibly could be costing us money before we can move in?
We are using all our spare cash for deposit, so dont have much money lying around.

~Beanie~

I don't really understand - if it is a repo, then the seller will be the lender (bank or building society). Why would they not allow you to test the elec/gas/water etc? Surely it would be in their interests to allow potential buyers to test such things and therefore secure a sale where possible?

Out of interest, where the heck do you live that charges £4/5K for a new boiler?

clairedurham

Hi,

I thought I might be able to help as I moved into my first house last month, a repo!

Mine is only 10 years old so rightly or wrongly I didn't check things either; water, gas & leccy were all turned off anyway so I get the feeling if I'd asked they'd have said no anyway. This is why you get repos so cheap, it really is sold as seen.

We've had a few extra expenses I suppose, I'll try and remeber the list....

£150 for a security guy to service the alarm and change the code as no-one knew it
£90 to service and check the boiler and gas fire (they were fine)
A new letter box as the old one had been screwed shut badly.

That's pretty much it, the rest of the stuff like paint etc I'd have bought regardless of whether it was a repo.

On the up side we didn't have to pay to reconnect the utilities like some threads on here suggest and the bank had already changed the locks so we didn't have to do that.

I'm not sure if my experience was out of the ordinary but touch wood up to now haven't really had many problems.

Good luck whatever you decide and sorry for the long post.

poppysarah

One of the risks of repo land. No checks.

janefen

clairedurham wrote: »

Hi,

I thought I might be able to help as I moved into my first house last month, a repo!

Mine is only 10 years old so rightly or wrongly I didn't check things either; water, gas & leccy were all turned off anyway so I get the feeling if I'd asked they'd have said no anyway. This is why you get repos so cheap, it really is sold as seen.

We've had a few extra expenses I suppose, I'll try and remeber the list....

£150 for a security guy to service the alarm and change the code as no-one knew it
£90 to service and check the boiler and gas fire (they were fine)
A new letter box as the old one had been screwed shut badly.

That's pretty much it, the rest of the stuff like paint etc I'd have bought regardless of whether it was a repo.

On the up side we didn't have to pay to reconnect the utilities like some threads on here suggest and the bank had already changed the locks so we didn't have to do that.

I'm not sure if my experience was out of the ordinary but touch wood up to now haven't really had many problems.

Good luck whatever you decide and sorry for the long post.

Hi, in this case, do you think it is essential to make a survery for the repossessed property? I am looking for the repo which is less 10 years, and it is a flat.

clairedurham

Well I'm no expert as this is my first house but yes we got a Home Buyers report done along with the mandatory valuation for the mortgage. I decided against a full building survey due to the age of the house but I'm very glad I paid the extra for the home buyers. I don't know what I would have done with a flat though.

But the survey did not check electric,gas and boiler and no I didn't get these checked prior to moving in.

If you want my opinion you should be OK with a newish flat but don't hold me to that and just remember your offer should reflect the fact that things may not work.

downs523

i have just bought a 3 bed terraced house that is a reposession. forgot to ask if they have already changed the locks. another funny thing is that all the houses in the row have alarm boxes on the front but theres no keypad or sensors inside?? property is 3 yrs old.

p.s how much is it to change locks on 2 doors?

Minky2Slice

~Beanie~ wrote: »

Why would they not allow you to test the elec/gas/water etc?

Thats the million dollar question!

~Beanie~ wrote: »

Out of interest, where the heck do you live that charges £4/5K for a new boiler?

worst case scenario? friend of my got quote for £3000 recently(just boiler)

poppysarah

That'll be a BG gas quote. ;-)

Because it's buyer beware. Put your offer based on it needing a new system, and rewiring.

Minky2Slice

poppysarah wrote: »

That'll be a BG gas quote. ;-)

Correct ;-)

poppysarah wrote: »

That'll be a BG gas quote. ;-)

Because it's buyer beware. Put your offer based on it needing a new system, and rewiring.

yeah i guessed as much, but we put offer in and it got accpeted already before we got homebuyers survey and before we knew that we wont be able to check everything.
Dont think we can change our offer now!? and not sure how much it would be to rewire and for new system (if needed)

gogsboy

downs523 wrote: »

p.s how much is it to change locks on 2 doors?

Dependent on type of locks I would guess, if it's your run of the mill euro locks found in UPVC doors then it's peanuts as long as you do it yourself and they are really simple to change out.