Seller lied on property questionaire - Electrical fire

missprice

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

- Talking with the neighbours is a good idea. Its down to the "other considerations" - ie that the previous owners were generally totally irresponsible types owing money to people right, left and centre. Personally - I'd want to know just HOW irresponsible they were. All the more so - from the sound of that man turning up and trying their outside door shortly after they moved in and running off when he got yelled at by OP. Who knows what other "irresponsible" and worse these characters knew - and forewarned is forearmed in case of any further door-trying visitors or the like. I was (obviously) not talking about the electrics here (more about the house generally and the security of it).

- Re-wiring with no damage = pull the other one. There is NO way that there wont be rather noticeable damage. I've gone through major electrical work being done on 2 houses now - one a Victorian terrace with "traditional" walls. The second house being concrete blocks and concrete floors (instead of standard normal, ie plaster walls and wood plank floors). In both cases - a LOT of damage was done to d!cor. In the case of the Victorian terrace house - some floorboards had to come up in the course of it.

Its not my idea of fun living in a house having major electrical work done or the redecoration that definitely WILL be necessary afterwards. The only consolation is that it only takes a few days of the bit of chaos whilst the electrical work itself is being done.

Its still gossip, it still won't help the situation, Sean already "knows" that there is money owing due to charges on the house, and already has had one dodgy visitor, if that's not enough clues for you, everyone should lock their doors anyway, even if they are in the house.

And yes rewiring can be done by pulling cables through with old cable. No mess at all just a really long and boring job.

sean1989 wrote: »

So i thought i would enter his name, turns out he is registered....

Im bamboozled to it ... I really am... He promised zero damage what so ever.... But weird, any pro sparkies ever fully rewired without a bit of damage?

Honestly, look at your kitchen,see how many sockets you have, add up how many you need and add 6.
I have 14 sockets in my kitchen alone, several hardly used but when I need them, cos the coffee machine and slow cooker and my mobiles and OHs mobile and laptop etc.

Original 1930s kitchen had 2 plus the cooker wired in.
Do that over then whole house and just get a full rewire with sockets where you want them and multiple light fittings wherever.

macman

Solicitor has given very good advice: essentially, that the risk (and cost if you lose) outweighs the likely award should you win, since the damage caused by the short is not great, given the already lethal state of the wiring.
Secondly, getting a full survey would not have revealed the wiring bodges, though it might have caused you enough concern to then commission a proper electrical inspection and report.

MM64

Can you re-wire a house and guarantee no damage to walls and decorating?

Almost impossible! - In 25 years in the business I've never heard such a ludicrous claim.

I can only assume your electrician has rewired loads of houses in your street and the internal conduits are sound and go all the way from box to floorboards.

Also he would have to remove every socket, switch cooker control unit and shower feed to ensure there were no additions. Your main problem seems to be the additions so he would need to put these right.

Like others have said - if you rewire you bespoke it and future proof it to your needs.

Don't add to your woes by getting the cheapest quote with impossible claims.

Work out what you want long term and get a few quotes from NIC/EIC and part P registered companies.

Around the £4K mark seems about right to me.

sean1989_2

Yeah after googling and talking to 3 more electricians they have all said that if they could wire houses without damaging they would be millionaires by now :rotfl:

Insurance update
So, insurance sent their "surveyor" and under his recomendation are choosing they cannot payout. Now as you all know, i tend to not just let people tell me an answer so i dug deeper, and i actually spoke to the surveyor, he said
" the fire was caused because the installation was not fit and the fuse box was overloaded"

I asked him how he could know this, he said the electrical report.

Sure enough i contended this and said that the report does not state the cause of fire so how can he make a claim that it does.

He said we have declined and hung up!

I rung back and they are saying the same thing that the reason they cannot cover is the installation and the overload - they have 0 proof of this and are litterally just throwing excuses.

I chose to take another approach and challenge them further, the shower was the culprit and this is ran off a completly seperate breaker - turning the shower on would not "overload" the circuit nor had it done for the past x amount of years so therefore its an electrical fault.

They then said electrical faults are covered but yours isnt and said i would have to get my own surveyor to allow them to reinvestigate amd down went the phone again.....

I am actually thinking that they are avoiding a claim here or am i being cynical?

cattermole

I thought you were claiming the same thing they are? That the whole system was a faulty installation and the shower overloaded it?

The other thing is most insurance companies will exclude poor maintenance to a property as the cause of the damage.

I tend to think it's lucky the whole house didn't burn down, because if you had no cover then through poor maintenance where would you be? :eek:

The fact the previous owners poorly maintained it doesn't really concern the insurance company, if a property is in a poor state of repair then it usually excludes any damage resulting from it.

AdrianC

sean1989 wrote: »

" the fire was caused because the installation was not fit and the fuse box was overloaded"

I think he meant the wiring to the fusebox was overloaded. Which is what you've told us.

sean1989_2

hmm i suppose so, just that they are claiming "overloaded" in the sense that we overloaded it. I realise i didnt explain that too well. I disagree with their comment completly. We havent overloaded it, it was already sausaged - but as per the solicitors perception on things, as nobody can prove what started the fire - surely it can be deemed as a fault?

DaftyDuck

How many people in this thread - including me - have said insurance would not (SHOULD not) pay out on this.

The installation was faulty, and uninsurable as it was. Not least,they are not going to pay to upgrade your system from trash to a new install, and they can't reinstate the trash that was there.

If I let my roof decay to the point where a light wind takes it off, the insurance will not pay for a replacement. You have just stated

it was already sausaged -

... so why should an insurer (which effectively means the rest of us) pay for your lax approach?

You have no claim against your insurer. You would be foolish to try to claim against the vendor (would probably lose, and they are bankrupt anyway), but you might just (just.... ) have a claim against your solicitor, if you paid for (or were lead to believe) a survey that wasn't performed.

Once again... you have no chance of an insurance claim paying for a rewire!

sean1989_2

If you dont ask you dont get though right!? Always worth an attempt,

To summarise everything we decided on taking a small home improvement loan to fix the electrics have the boiler replaced and to fix the damp issues - and then comfort buy to feel better

cattermole

DaftyDuck wrote: »

How many people in this thread - including me - have said insurance would not (SHOULD not) pay out on this.

The installation was faulty, and uninsurable as it was. Not least,they are not going to pay to upgrade your system from trash to a new install, and they can't reinstate the trash that was there.

If I let my roof decay to the point where a light wind takes it off, the insurance will not pay for a replacement. You have just stated ... so why should an insurer (which effectively means the rest of us) pay for your lax approach?

You have no claim against your insurer. You would be foolish to try to claim against the vendor (would probably lose, and they are bankrupt anyway), but you might just (just.... ) have a claim against your solicitor, if you paid for (or were lead to believe) a survey that wasn't performed.

Once again... you have no chance of an insurance claim paying for a rewire!

I totally agree and have said from the offset the only recourse was possibly through the solicitors not having due diligence and acting in their clients best interests to eliminate any risk to the client. It was a factory conveyance in a nutshell.