Flat fails electricity test - due to exchange tomorrow

Ftbuyer

Hi all,

We are due to exchange contracts on a two bedroom flat in London tomorrow.

The survey came back a while ago and was fine, but the surveyor advised us to get a gas engineer and electrician to conduct safety checks, which we did.

The gas report was fine but we have been chasing the electrician for his report for several weeks and it only came back today.

It says that the electrics in the flat do not meet the requirements of "BS 7671 safety regulations" and that it needs £800 worth of work to upgrade.

The problem is that we are due to exchange contracts tomorrow so I'm not sure if there is anything we can do at this late stage? We already managed to get the property for £25k less than asking price as we didn't want to go over the £250k stamp duty threshold, so I'm not sure we could ask for any more off the price?

If anyone is able to offer any advice tonight it would be much appreciated!

Kate

bclark

Try and find out more about those specific regulations. You might find that they are the very latest and that you wouldn't expect the property to comply with them.

Errata

How old is the flat? As far as I can see BS7671 refers only to electrics designed after 1 July 2008.

yoyoegg

The 17th edition of BS7671 was released in January 2008, so it's almost certain the properties built before that date will be non-compliant, but could have been OK with the regs in force at the built date.

We all know these regs are just a "make work" for tradesmen, as they mandate sockets move 2mm up the wall every year.

G_M

Speak to electrician. Simple question:

* are the elecrics safe?

As explained, the regs change all the time and only the most recently built properties comply with the latest regs.

Ftbuyer

Thank you everyone for your replies, which have provided some much needed reassurance.

The property was built in 1900, so I guess it is to be expected that all of the electrics aren't totally up-to-date. None of the points for repair are listed as dangerous, two are "potentially dangerous" and the rest are "recommended for upgrade". I guess we should find out how much it would cost to sort out the "potentially dangerous" things but these are unlikely to add up to the £800 total.

R_P_W

we bought a flat in London of a similar age. There were a number of things that flagged on the electrical survey, the main thing was changing the consumer unit and fuse box. There were a list of about 10 things and they quoted ~£1200 to fix.

I proceeded, a couple of months after moving in I got a friend of the family who is an electrician to come and do the work.

He couldn't find any evidence that 4 of the problems even existed! He was able to complete work on the other points for £400 all in.

Also had the roof replaced for the same cost as the surveyor quoted for repairing the old one.

I think some of these survqeyers are just trying to genterate work for their own companies to rectify at a high cost.