Boiler problems in sold house

jonty43

We had an issue with a small leak from under our boiler on the day of our house move. It was minus 5' and I'd assumed the condenser vent pipe had frozen.
Anyway as an offer of goodwill I paid for a plumber to go and service it 3 weeks after we'd moved, He'd identified a leaking seal (only doing it when the boiler was cold) so to cover this I paid the couple £50 to cover the cost of this component.
Just had a heated phonecall saying that the boiler is now unfit for purpose and we will be taken to court for the cost of a new boiler and water damage. Based on the fact that it was like it when they moved in. Is there a chance they could be successful in this? I know on the documents for the house we brought it clearly stated it was our responsibilty to test heating etc.
Has anyone suffered anything similar?

Badger_Lady

Eep... I can't claim to be an expert but it sounds like you may have admitted liability by arranging for the boiler servicing etc... it's just very unfortunate that the problem turned out to be worse than you realised

poppysarah

Speak to the guy who repaired it. What did he think?

olly300

You should have washed your hands of it the day you moved out. It's up to the vendor to check these things out.

I suggest you have a quick talk with your solicitor to see if you have admitted liability and need to pay for it to be fixed. If you haven't tell them to sort it out themselves.

ghostbusters

Slightly different but maybe helpful for future reference.. I had a british gas service contract on my boiler when I sold.

6 weeks after sale buyer rings up telling me their tenants were complaining boiler had stopped working.

Apparently they didn't put a service contract in place after the sale though they were most insistent on seeing mine before sale...

Not my problem. AFAIC the service contract in place when I sold made any problems after sale their problem.

May I suggest to anyone thinking of selling to get a service contract in place a few months in advance of sale .. may help avoiding these kind of issues arising in future.

Made the suggestion to a friend who found out his boiler was actually leaking higher than expected levels of CO!!!

Personally I think your buyer is taking the mickey..

GDB2222

It's highly unlikely that you have warranted that the boiler was fit for purpose. I certainly hope your solicitor stopped your doing so. In any case, the boiler was presumably working normally at the date of exchange. Any goodwill gestures you made were over and above your obligations, and you should write back to your buyers pointing all this out. I think it is highly unlikely that they will try this on in court, but if they do you can offer them something to settle the case, just to avoid the stress.

Fire_Fox

jonty43 wrote: »

We had an issue with a small leak from under our boiler on the day of our house move. It was minus 5' and I'd assumed the condenser vent pipe had frozen.
Anyway as an offer of goodwill I paid for a plumber to go and service it 3 weeks after we'd moved, He'd identified a leaking seal (only doing it when the boiler was cold) so to cover this I paid the couple £50 to cover the cost of this component.
Just had a heated phonecall saying that the boiler is now unfit for purpose and we will be taken to court for the cost of a new boiler and water damage. Based on the fact that it was like it when they moved in. Is there a chance they could be successful in this? I know on the documents for the house we brought it clearly stated it was our responsibilty to test heating etc.
Has anyone suffered anything similar?

Hot air: if you were going to be taken to court you would have received a solicitors letter not a phone call.

jonty43

I think that's the problem, my conveyencing solicitor said that we have been more than reasonable and have no obligation, I managed to speak to the plumber and he said that the component was hard to remove and he'd sheared one of the bolts removing it. I think it was a case of not wanting to damage it further. Anyway it's 8 weeks since we moved, I wanted to retain "goodwill" because we have stayed in the same village. This has obviously now vanished anyway. The frustrating thing is the boiler is only 6 yrs old so we'd always assumed that there were no issues with the inside of the boiler.

It is a worry

jonty43

I will add that it was working ok on the date of exchange, it started to drip the morning of our house move.

G_M

For now, ignore. A phonecall is just a try-on. If you receive a letter with a specific claim you can respond to that, but till then do nothing.

If you DO get a letter, either from them or a solicitor, then consult your solicitor, but personally I'd respond as GDB2222 suggests above.

jfed

I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I believe it would only be a problem if you had deliberately mislead the people who purchased the house. It is also their responsibility to carry out a proper survey prior to contract exchange. If your house had burnt down on day of exchange would u have been liable for that too. I think not.