Dispute with previous owner on boiler

nbr

Hi,

I have recently bought a property as first time buyer. When checking everything in the house before the exchange, I asked the previous owners whether they could provide me paperwork related to the service of the existing boiler. They said they did not have any but they were subscribed to the "Homecare 200" from British Gas which, among all the other things, provides a British Gas engineer to call you and arrange your annual service. After double checking with British Gas that the owners were actually on that scheme, we thought that would be enough as guarantee for a good working boiler.

After the purchase we moved into the house and the boiler started not to work straight away (no flame even after resetting). The plumber we called opened the boiler and found a huge amount of rust and limescale which showed that the boiler had not been serviced for a long time. I eventually had to replace the boiler.

Now, the owners are saying that the boiler was ok in their opinion so do not want to refund the boiler cost + British Gas would not issue to me any paperwork related to the last service the boiler had with the previous owners since the request for paperwork has to come from the previous owners and not from me (for data protection).

I am after some way of finding out whether:

- during the last service British Gas warned the previous owners of the possible problems of the boiler but the previous owners did not do anything about it

or

- There was no warning issued by British Gas during the last service, in which case British Gas did not do a good service and they should then refund the boiler.

At the moment, though, it seems I cannot get hold of any of the real information.

Any advice?

BitterAndTwisted

Yes, look up the phrase "caveat emptor" in Google

david29dpo

If the previous owners have lied, you MAY have a case, how far do you want to take it?

nbr

david29dpo,

New boiler was £1500, so I would like to get to the bottom of it for sure.

The problem is that I cannot know if they have lied or not unless I get hold of the last service paperwork, which a) British Gas will not give to me due to data protection b) if I ask the previous owners to contact British Gas themselves, they will say they will do but it will not happen, as it is not something in their interest.

G_M

What BG may or may not have told the previous owners, and what the owners may or may not have done about about it is not your business.

You bought a property 'as seen'. Presumably you had a survey to satisfy yourself that the property was in satisfactory condition. By the sound of it you failed to have a boiler inspection done to satisfy yourself about the boiler. The previous owners did not give you any documentation about the good, or bad, condition of the boiler, so you cannot rely on anything except your own (presumably brief, visual?) inspection.

Next time, ask to see documentation/guarantees and if there isn't any, then get a specialist inspection done.

You now have a nice, brand new boiler which will last you many years. Enjoy keeping cosy in this cold weather!

david29dpo

Do you have proof of what the owners said?

cte1111

Bizarre thread! It's not the first one I've seen from first time buyers complaining about boiler services etc. I guess it's because when you are renting the landlord has to have the boiler serviced, as it's a gas appliance.

Reality check - you do not have to do the same when you own your own home! You have bought the house and that's the end of it. The boiler was working but now has died, these things happen. It's annoying but the cost of a new boiler / new roof / new shed is down to you now, there is no landlord to pay for it and you can't expect the previous owners to care less.

nbr

cte1111 wrote: »

Bizarre thread! It's not the first one I've seen from first time buyers complaining about boiler services etc. I guess it's because when you are renting the landlord has to have the boiler serviced, as it's a gas appliance.

Reality check - you do not have to do the same when you own your own home! You have bought the house and that's the end of it. The boiler was working but now has died, these things happen. It's annoying but the cost of a new boiler / new roof / new shed is down to you now, there is no landlord to pay for it and you can't expect the previous owners to care less.

you should have seen the status of the boiler INSIDE. It is NOT something that happened while I used the boiler (words of my plumbers)

nbr

G_M wrote: »

You bought a property 'as seen'. Presumably you had a survey to satisfy yourself that the property was in satisfactory condition. By the sound of it you failed to have a boiler inspection done to satisfy yourself about the boiler. The previous owners did not give you any documentation about the good, or bad, condition of the boiler, so you cannot rely on anything except your own (presumably brief, visual?) inspection.

Yes, I had a visual inspection, but I did not dismantle the boiler itself, which is what was needed to find the real cause of the fault (i.e. rust and limescale)

nbr

david29dpo wrote: »

Do you have proof of what the owners said?

Yes, I have a letter from their solicitor stating that the previous owners had a service done in June (confirmed to me on the phone by British Gas) and that (quoting from the letter) "in their opinion the boiler was in good working condition at the time of sale"

nbr