Electrical Safety

RJFish

I have recently bought my first house (moved in about 2 weeks ago) and am upset to discover the electrics in the house are unsafe. A qualified electrician has told me that the house should never have been sold in this state, or I should have at least been informed before purchasing. I cant find anything online to confirm whether it is legal to sell a house without an electrical certificate or not.


Please could someone help? I will obviously pay to have the house made safe, but I am concerned that the agents saw this first time buyer coming..... I did not have a survey carried out as I wasn't aware this was an option, by the time I was told bout it, the agents said the sellers would likely put the house back on the market as it would take too long to carry out the survey and they were desperate to move (now I know why)!!!


I just want to know if what they have done is legal or not?!! Many thanks in advance

macman

There is no requirement for a house to be sold with any sort of 'certification' whatsoever. The only utility certification required is a gas safety certificate if the house is rented.
It's up to you to ask the questions before purchase and arrange inspection if you wish to do so (at your expense) Otherwise, it's caveat emptor.
The vendor is not obliged to tell you anything, they merely have to answer the pre-contract questions truthfully.
Presumably you are a cash buyer if you did not have a survey, otherwise how did you obtain a mortgage? Anyway, a survey does not cover electrical safety, as a surveyor is not qualified to say more than something like 'the wiring and CU appear to be old, an inspection is recommended'-which is something you could have established yourself. Otherwise you would need to employ an electrician to do this.
What is actually 'unsafe' about the install? All that is required is that it met the regs at the time of install, which could be 40 years or more ago. That does not make it intrinsically unsafe.
Clearly if they were not even prepared to wait for a survey then they were after a quick cash buyer-you presumably pitched your offer accordingly.

JJ_Egan

Agree please post what is unsafe as opposed to may not be up to date with today's regulations .

macman

Sounds like your sparky is possibly winding you up in order to do work that may not be necessary.

ChumpusRex

A house can be sold in any state. There is no requirement for it to be safe. It is quite legal to sell a house where the roof is about to cave in.

It is the responsibility of the buyer to check what they are buying. Did you ask the seller for a recent electrical inspection certificate? If not, why not? Did your surveyor make any comment about the electrics?

RJFish

Thank you all for your help! Sparky says its all outdated, its not earthed, there is no isolater switch for the cooker no RCD... please excuse my naievity if i have the wording wrong!

I guess i should of researched a bit more before buying the house... lesson learnt! I just thought that in this day in age, there would be some kind of laws on electrical saftey when buying a house!

Appreciate the help with my first post, thank you all! 👍

JJ_Egan

The probability is that the house was 100% up to date with electrical safety regulations when built .
Those regulations change frequently and even a new build may no meet current regulations five years later .
A lot depends upon the date of the build .
But for older houses to meet current regs it would mean each house had to be updated as and when new regulations come in to force .


Unusual though for a house not to be earthed .
RCD yes they are safer than a fuse box .

macman

Outdated...all houses not built in the last twenty years or so probably come into that category unless rewired.
Lack of earthing of what? Lighting circuits were not routinely earthed until the 1960's, and there are millions of houses still in that state, there's nothing illegal about it. If however there is no main earthing system then that is indeed dangerous and must be remedied without delay.
RCD's have only been fitted as standard for about the last ten years, again there is no legal requirement to update older installs, and it's not inherently 'dangerous'.