Buying House, Boiler hasn't been serviced in 6 years

tinoest

Hi,

I have placed an offer on a property and that has been accepted, the mortgage survey has been completed and is acceptable and I am now going through the process of the Land Surveys etc.

It has come to my attention that the Boiler has not been serviced in the last 6 years that the current owners have lived there. Can I request this to happen before the exchange of contracts, or is it to late now?

Or is it even something that my Solicitors will check and verify as part of their checks? I assume that it is the sellers responsibility to ensure the items within the house have to be in good condition and not dangerous.

Any advice would be appreciated.

BitterAndTwisted

This has nothing to do with the solicitors and everything to do with you and what you want. You could make your offer dependent on a heating engineer doing a check or service at your expense.

tinoest

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

This has nothing to do with the solicitors and everything to do with you and what you want. You could make your offer dependent on a heating engineer doing a check or service at your expense.

Even though I have already had the offer accepted and we are at the stage of Sold Subject to Contract.

In hindsight I realise I should of checked this first before putting an offer in but I didn't think of it.

DTDfanBoy

Generally you perform the necessary surveys, checks etc after your offer is accepted but before exchange.

Get someone in to check out the system and go from there

BitterAndTwisted

Well, just because the boiler hasn't been serviced does not mean that it isn't working or that it's dangerous. Arrange for a service engineer to check the boiler before you exchange contracts. Up until that point you are not totally committed to any price. If they vendors are reluctant to give permission this should tell you nearly everything you need to know.

tinoest

I assume any costs incurred are mine to pay.

Thanks for the responses.

TrickyDicky101

A gas safety certificate from a qualified heating engineer needn't cost much (eg £50) - make sure you get it before you Exchange though

ash28

tinoest wrote: »

I assume any costs incurred are mine to pay.

Thanks for the responses.

Yes they are - your vendors aren't interested in the boiler - you are - however you may find like our buyers did, that your vendor is more than happy to pay for a gas safe check.

We were happy to pay - it didn't cost much - and the boiler, the oven, hob and gas fire were all done.

The trouble was our buyers thought we should pay for everything for them - the EA straightened them out - but we didn't mind paying for the gas check.

Dave_6

Was in the same position a week or so ago, our survey mentioned the boiler was old and best to be tested before exchange. We knew it hadnt been serviced in a couple of years so arranged for it to be tested and serviced, cost £65 which I'm paying.

Came back all fine, good condition for its age etc, everything heated up quickly.

Look someone up locally who can do it for you, Mention to the estate agent you want it done and then see what they say, should then be a simple case of then arranging it

phoebe1989seb

Similar thing happened to us recently but we were the sellers........our plumber had given our rayburn (boiler) the once over prior to marketing the house but our buyers understandably weren't content with this and wanted it serviced as it was quite old. They tried to negotiate the price down as their surveyor had mentioned the age of the rayburn and that it might need replacing, but as there were one or two other things flagged-up on the survey that they were happy to bear the cost of themselves, we agreed to pay for the service ourselves as it seemed the decent thing to do in order to keep things moving in the chain..........

jimjames

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Well, just because the boiler hasn't been serviced does not mean that it isn't working or that it's dangerous.

Our boiler isnt regularly serviced and the last time it was, it broke down the week afterwards. So definitely lack of servicing doesn't always mean bad news.