Buyer requesting we service our boiler prior to exchange - reasonable?

csgohan4

Is a sale worth £57 pounds for a boiler service? Although if the boiler has been giving you problems and you suspect it needs a new one put in, that choice is up to you.

Either way your stuck, the buyer gets their own one done and finds out it needs to be replaced, you will be asked to drop the price. I would get it done as it's quicker that way.

chile_paul

Just to give my own personal experience on this - when we bought our first house we had this quandary. We were advised to get a boiler check done but were re-assured by the sellers that it was working fine. We asked them to provide evidence and they declined and we chose to proceed anyway (we could have and should have had our own check completed.)

When we eventually moved in, after about a week we got a reputable national company to come and service it - within seconds of being in the property the engineer switched off all the gas and condemned the boiler - once we'd been shown the black soot marks on paint work around the boiler were oh so obvious - can't believe we'd missed them until he pointed them out to us!!! In our case the boiler had been incorrectly installed and the boiler flue had been venting back into the property - it could have been a fatal mistake.

On our recent house move we insisted when we put our first offer on the property that getting a safety check completed (and any "At Risk" or "Immediately Dangerous" defects repaired) was a condition of sale.

There are no rules about who's responsibility it is to get a safety check done before a house sale (maybe this is one area where some government legislation would be good, it would be a considerable improvement to the EPC!!!) but I would strongly recommend everyone to get one done before they move into a new home.

MeltonB

Recently sold a house in Scotland. As part of the required home report I had to declare what sort of service contract I had on the central heating system - this shows the history to the buyer who can decide from that whether it sounds like reasonable care. Seemed fair to me.

bigfreddiel

Don't service your boiler annually and your fuel bills will be bigger, and if it's gas you could blow up your house and be dead. See the incident that happened a day or so ago!

fj

Slouching_wolf

I really don't know why we haven't had it done in such a long time... just something that has slipped our minds I suppose. The rest of the house is not neglected at all and we take good care.

We are going to get it done for our benefit as much as our buyers, purely for the safety reasons highlighted in this thread.... which I hadn't even thought about to be honest (bad I know).

davidmcn

bigfreddiel wrote: »

if it's gas you could blow up your house and be dead. See the incident that happened a day or so ago!

If you really want to blow up your house (which appears to be what happened there) then how recently your boiler was serviced is probably irrelevant...

davidmcn

MeltonB wrote: »

Recently sold a house in Scotland. As part of the required home report I had to declare what sort of service contract I had on the central heating system - this shows the history to the buyer who can decide from that whether it sounds like reasonable care. Seemed fair to me.

Further protection in Scotland because the contract (usually) includes a warranty that the central heating etc is all in working order at completion, if not necessarily recently serviced or in tip-top condition.

Marktheshark

The house that blew up looks to have been a domestic murder, not the result of someone refusing to service the boiler for the new owners.

Thrugelmir

Slouching_wolf wrote: »

I really don't know why we haven't had it done in such a long time... just something that has slipped our minds I suppose. The rest of the house is not neglected at all and we take good care.

We are going to get it done for our benefit as much as our buyers, purely for the safety reasons highlighted in this thread.... which I hadn't even thought about to be honest (bad I know).

Warranty will be invalid if there hasn't been an annual service. Having spent a considerable sum on replacing our boiler a few years ago. £60 per annum maintaining it seemed a small price to pay.

marleyboy

Davesnave wrote: »

There are far more important considerations when purchasing the most expensive item one is ever likely to own.

Maybe for YOU there are. To me this was up there as one of the important considerations. Particularly as you say...its one of the most expensive, potentially life changing purchases anyone is likely to make.

Needless to say, as the buyer those were my terms of the sale. If the seller did not like the terms, he was free to turn me down and wait for the next potential buyer to come along.

It would appear he decided it was worth getting it done, as we now live here with complete satisfaction that it was a good buy.