Needs re-wiring - didn't come up in survey

hock79

My o/h has just had his electric company in and they've told him his whole flat needs re-wiring :eek: I don't have the details yet but he only bought the place 4 years ago, shouldn't this have shown up in his survey? Would he be able to claim on insurance or anything for this? Obviously he's going to get a second opinon first but I'm just wondering where he stands with regard to the survey.

bryanb

Read the survey small print, I'll bet there's a disclaimer.

zax47

A survey for mortgage purchase - i.e. commissioned by the mortgage lender, does not go into that sort of detail. It is purely for the mortgage company to ensure the property is worth what they are lending - it does not include inspections of the electrical system, or the plumbing - merely that fact that an electrical and/or gas & water supply (& sewerage) exist and that the property isn't going to fall down before you've paid for it!

Regardless of that - I would get a 2nd opinion from a qualified electrician (like me), I have every suspicion that the "electric company" have a vested interest. Was this an engineer doing some work or a "survey" by a salesman??

hock79

Thanks very much guys, he's going to dig out his original survey and see what it says.
Zax, it was an engineer doing some work that the electric company paid for, but he's definitely getting a second opinion! He's planning on renting the place out soon so we're mainly worried that it won't pass the regulations needed and that it'll need to be done before we can rent it.

macman

On what basis does it 'need rewiring'? No doubt at the time of the last rewire it met the standards, but if that was 20 or 40 years ago then of course it won't pass current standards now.
No surveyor does more than an external glance at the wiring and CU, it's obvious even to a lay person if it's got old rubber sheathed cable and cartridge fuses that it's an old install. That in itself does not make it substandard.

27col

The survey would have been simply so that the mortgage company would know that they could get their money back in the event of a mortgage default. The fact that it possibly could have done with a rewire would not really concern them as long as there was enough value in the rest of the property, to ensure that they could sell it and cover their loan.