Boiler check pre exchange?

Wassa123

Hi all,

I've been recommended by the solicitor to get the central heating checked out before the exchange of contracts. (The usual paragraph that they always suggest).

The property that we are buying has been tenanted. I've heard if it's tenanted then landlords need to have the gas/boiler inspected every year and get a gas safety certificate.

I'll ask our solicitor to ask them to send over a copy of the latest gas safety certificate. With this in mind, do we still need to get it checked if it has been recently inspected?

Wassa123

Would you advise getting it serviced pre exchanged or just "looked at" pre exchange?

Our sellers are extremely slow and flakey and it would be a lot quicker to pay and book it myself rather than ask them to do it.

kinger101

A gas safety certificate is valid for one year, and much like an MOT, is means the boiler was safe on the day it was inspected. Pre-exchange, it's not your boiler, so you'd need the vendors permission to get it serviced. If you want an inspection, you'll have to pay for this as well. Personally, I wouldn't bother doing anything until it's your home. If it's a old boiler, just expect it to fail at some time next 3 months to 5 years. As long as it's currently working, you don't really have much scope for getting a price reduction, and it's not like your going to write of all your survey and legal fees and abort the sale over a £2K boiler.

Chasing up the safety certificate is not a bad idea though. Going round and testing the heating yourself wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Hoploz

I got a service and safety check done for about £70 for my boiler and hob. That sorts out the gas safety.

However, this doesn't tell you whether the full system is in working order. If you want to know if the radiators come on and the water gets hot you'll need to go in when it's all on and check. This could be done by you or you could pay someone to do it eg heating engineer while he's doing the safety check.

G_M

Wassa123 wrote: »

Hi all,

I'll ask our solicitor to ask them to send over a copy of the latest gas safety certificate. With this in mind, do we still need to get it checked if it has been recently inspected?

Depends what you want to know:

* whether the boiler is in good condition or
* whether it is safe

A 20 year old boiler, on its last legs, supplying hot water to a heating stystem bunged up with dirt so that the radiators don't get hot can pass a gas safety test, provided it is 'safe' (ie will not kill you with CO etc).

chile_paul

When we bought our first house 5 years ago we were advised to get the boiler checked out by a professional but chose not to in order to save the circa £70-80.


Within a week or two of moving in we took out boiler cover with one of the big name providers and when they came to check it out they immediately condemned it for multiple reasons including the fact it was flooding the area with Carbon Monoxide!!! That was an immediate £5k bill that I hadn't been expecting along with a week without any gas heating.


This time around we told our sellers very early on (pre survey) that we insisted they provide us with a valid gas safety certificate from within the last 12 months - as they hadn't already got one that meant they needed to get someone in to do it - which they were happy to do. They chose not to ask us to pay for it (which frankly we probably would have done so). This is still not going to be a 100% guarantee that we're not going to find a problem a couple of months down the line, but it should give more confidence.


In my opinion if you can get hold of the gas safety certificate from within the last 12 months you should be fairly safe - this certificate should I think also show you if there were any advisory notes for improvements that should be made which will give you an indication of the general condition.