House sale queries

tiggerkid

Morning all,

Firstly, thank you very much to everyone who replied to my yesterday's post about soffits and fascias. Much appreciated.

New day brings new questions

We have just received a letter from the buyers' solicitors where they are asking us to confirm whether any double glazing units have been blown and need replacing, to provide gas safety certificates for boiler and fire place and to provide electrical works certificates for the kitchen that was replaced.

Again, I have the following questions:

1) I don't believe we have any issues with double glazing. However there may be issues I am not aware of. At present, I have no intention of getting any double glazing companies in for quotes for issues I am not aware of as, in theory, these people can always find a problem to fix in order to make some money. Could someone who has or had any experience with this advise where we stand with this?

2) Gas safety: I can provide gas safety cert for the boiler as we have an annual service due in few weeks' time anyway, so I can ask the engineer to provide it then. However, with gas prices going up like there is no tomorrow, we have not been using gas fire in our house since we moved in. That's good 8 years. Where do we stand in terms of having to provide a certificate for the gas fire as well?

3) Our kitchen was replaced over 3 years ago. I don't have the certificates anymore. The buyers are also asking for shed load of miscellaneous other certificates that I no longer have. I am aware that we can hire various engineers to provide up-to-date certificates for everything under the Sun but one of my concerns is that our buyers are the people who have already threatened to pull out because of £730 worth of work quoted for painting soffits and fascias. All these certificates that they want cost money and, in theory, they can still pull out after we've paid to obtain them.

Please don't get me wrong. I am not a horrible selfish individual who doesn't understand that house purchase is a big commitment and that people need to be sure of what they are buying. I am in exactly the same position myself in that we are also buying our next house, so I would also like to be sure of certain things. However, I am not asking our seller to provide me with certificates since time began because I don't feel it's reasonable.

At times, I just feel as if our buyers are acting like they are buying a brand new house from a large building company. Even then, we have had experience of buying a new house in the past and we've not had the number of certificates they are requesting even then!

Could someone please share their experience with the above points? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

lavalamp

My personal opinion - provide them with what you have and tell them you don't have the rest (and why). Answer any questions as honestly as you can and leave it at that.

Kynthia

As you already have a engineer coming round it should be easy to get him to provide a gas safety cert for both the boiler and gas fire, so then give that to your buyers and it shows willing. Tell them you are unaware of any blown double glazing (google for images as I think it goes misty/opaque) and say that although you've had no trouble with the electrics you are willing to allow them to have their own check should they wish to pay for one.