EICR report prior to purchase - C2's cost of remedy

blueincubus

Hi all, would appreciate a few thoughts on this, I commissioned an EICR report on a property that I'm buying. The results show a number of C2's (potentially dangerous, urgent remedial action required) - in broad terms what would the 'good house purchaser' do in having these corrected. Would you expect a reduction in purchase price or should the buyer (me!) meet the costs.

Personally I think if I'd been in this situation with regards to the property that I'm currently selling I'd have expected to meet some of the cost, but it's quite possible that I'm just a wimpy seller. Would appreciate your thoughts - don't know actual costs of remedy yet btw, waiting on quote from electrician - but my understanding is that essentially 'safe' elements that don't meet current regs would be a C3, so these need sorting.

-Just to add, I did of course pay for the EICR myself as buyer!

HouseBuyer77

Well it's all down to negotiation but personally if I were selling my house I wouldn't be offering to fix anything related to a C2 on an EICR, nor reduce price unless it was hard to find a new buyer.

The cost to fix is likely to be a few hundred. Any house will have many small issues that could cost a few hundred to fix, you make your offer on the basis of these existing.

What exactly are the C2s?

HouseBuyer77

As an example of a C2 in my own property there's a socket in the shed. The plastic box it sits in has a hole in it that's exposed.

This is a C2 as you could touch a live conductor, if you felt like sticking a metal rod through an open hole in an electrical socket with the power turned on.

Personally I don't think it's worth worrying about. I might replace it with a new one at some point (easy job, few minutes with a screwdriver).

blueincubus

My (very) vague assumption based on the report is that it will all be fairly quick and easy to sort apart from 1 item which relates to the earth loop inpedance being too high - it seems there's a range of costs for sorting this relating to how much digging is needed as part of the process to rectify.

Screenshot of summary at link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/w1f8yvirffn76lv/Capture.PNG?dl=0

Tbh unless the cost is high I wouldn't even consider trying to argue for a contribution.

davidmcn

All very interesting, but if you're buying a second-hand house, the market price reflects that not everything is squeaky-clean. Unless there was something significant needing urgent attention, I don't see a need to start negotiating, it's just some stuff to add to the future maintenance jobs.