No original cavity wall certificate. Is this a risk?

sam.ssrs

Hello everyone.

I am buying my first property in the UK. My lawyer has just come back to me saying that the seller is not in the possession of the original cavity wall certificate. I am not even sure what is a cavity wall certificate. Is this something I need to be concerned about? Will this be a problem when I try to sell the property in the future?

Rambosmum

How old is the property. Do they mean cavity wall insulation, as in the vendor is claiming that they have insulation but no way to prove it?


Ask you solicitor what this means!

halys

The seller can very easily obtain a copy from CIGA


https://ciga.co.uk/


When I was selling my house, I couldn't for the life of me find the certificate, rang them, paid the fee, and voila, happy purchaser


It is important to have as it guarantees the insulation was correctly applied so to speak by an approved technician.

Davesnave

Solicitors often know very little about property construction. I expect it's a cavity wall insulation guarantee, which may or may not have existed or be worth anything. A lot of companies that did this sort of work vanished up their own fundamentals.


You could try inputting your address at CIGA and see if it comes up with anything, but don't hold your breath!



https://ciga.co.uk/


Otherwise, you should just pay special attention to whether there are any signs of dampness, especially if the house is in an exposed place. Mind you, my house is exposed and I've no idea who insulated it, but there is no problem.

stator

If the cavity wall insulation was installed in the last few years, then yes it would be something to be concerned about. If cavity wall insulation was installed badly, then it could cause problems in your house. If the person selling the house has a Guarantee or other paperwork, you can check who is the company who did it, and are they covered by any trade body or professional insurance scheme if their work was bad and you want to make a complaint.
If the cavity wall insulation is old, like over 5 years old, then I wouldn't worry about it. Any problems would be evident by now. A lot of houses have cavity wall insulation installed and will have no paperwork at all.

Davesnave

halys wrote: »

The seller can very easily obtain a copy from CIGA

Snap!

(But I'm less trusting than you, so I'd never say "can very easily" about such a cowboy-ridden industry...though that's giving it rather a grand name.)

sam.ssrs

Thanks for the replies.

The property I am purchasing is a 1930s semi-detached house.

I could not find a search by postcode option on the CIGA website.

Assuming the seller has not done any cavity wall insulation certification and nor have the previous owners, how expensive would it be for me to carry this out?

AlexMac

Me neither (never heard of it). The house was either built with insulation (as every house has been in the past 40-odd years) or if it'd older, it wasn't (Most Victorian properties for example; many of which don't even have cavity walls - in effect two walls with a gap between.

If you plan a survey, ask the surveyor

If not, especially if it's an older house or one in a very wet or exposed location, you could ask the vendor (in writing, via your solicitor) if they've had cavity wall filling retro-fitted, however.

There's growing concern at a minority of problems caused by the cowboys who fitted insulation as part of the past 10 years of Government energy efficiency schemes; google it for examples like -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42165358

I got a British Gas sub-contractor in to insulate my loft on a subsidised basis under the BG scheme. They also wanted to do the walls, but said they couldn't -only because a couple of the walls were too close to the neighbouring property to permit access.

Just as well, since when, a couple of years later we did some work on a window, we realised these was already perfectly good fibreglass of rockwool insulation in the cavity; as is probably the case for every other house built in the '80s. Forcing gloop into the cavity would have been a disaster, benefitting only the cowboy contractor

But don't panic; yours is probably OK

System

sam.ssrs wrote: »

Assuming the seller has not done any cavity wall insulation certification and nor have the previous owners, how expensive would it be for me to carry this out?

You may able to get that and loft insulation done for free by one of the major energy suppliers and you don't even need to be a customer.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-cavity-loft-insulation/

However read this warning as the cavities need to be a minimum width to have it installed and in certain parts of the country installing it can lead to major damp and mould.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-cavity-loft-insulation/#warning

If you have to pay you're talking a couple of hundred quid. It is a trivial matter that wouldn't prevent me from buying a house.

Surrey_EA

sam.ssrs wrote: »

how expensive would it be for me to carry this out?

I'm not sure I would have it done, there may be unintended consequences.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42165358

halys

Davesnave wrote: »

Snap!

(But I'm less trusting than you, so I'd never say "can very easily" about such a cowboy-ridden industry...though that's giving it rather a grand name.)

Haha!

I had a home sale from h*ll (relationship breakdown) and wanted to be rid ASAP as I was getting literally no help from my ex-partner packing/ cleaning/ maintaining the three bedroom house while he was living it up with his Mum!


If memory serves correctly, I called CIGA, paid circa £25 and they sent a new one in the post within the week?