Bought new flat, boiler broken and other minor issues

akira181

I'm a FTB and been very confused with the whole process from start to finish so my apologies if my questions are stupid. I picked up the keys on Monday, packed and moved most of our stuff in on Tuesday to find the boiler doesn't work.

The vendors friend done all the flat viewings with us and said we could contact her if anything is wrong. So we called her and she arranged an engineer for Wednesday and also said it's got a full service history and will give us 6 months warranty for piece of mind since its quite old.

Annoyingly the engineer turned it on and it worked. When we moved in Thursday, it was broken again. Engineer back out on Friday, said he got it working but it's dangerous and advised us to leave it off. He will be back on Monday with a replacement part, leaving us with no heating or hot water for the weekend.

I'm not filled with confidence hearing it could explode after the first engineer just turned it on and said its fine. I haven't even seen paperwork proving the service history. There's also a lot of minor things like doors not closing, bath trims not fitting, etc. I'm not sure is there such a thing as a snagging list for a newly renovated old build tenement flat.

Is there anything I should be doing other than budgeting for a new boiler in the coming years

comeandgo

Get your solicitor on to it.

akira181

About what though? Just the boiler service history or the minor issues like doors not closing too?

Grey_Critic

What kind of survey did you have done? A mortgage company will simply require to know they will get their money back if you default. Any boiler over 5 years old can be suspect. Some makes are better than others.

akira181

Just the basic. The flat and building are in great condition, only concern is the age of the boiler, easily 5 years old. Full service history but no proof as of yet. I will ask my solicitor to find get the paperwork showing this. If there is no proof, am I within reason to ask for a contribution towards getting it replaced?

comeandgo

In Scotland you have a certain number of days to get back to venders, via your solicitor, and ask to get the boiler working again. Doors sticking I don't think you can do anything about.

Pixie5740

akira181 wrote: »

I'm a FTB and been very confused with the whole process from start to finish so my apologies if my questions are stupid. I picked up the keys on Monday, packed and moved most of our stuff in on Tuesday to find the boiler doesn't work.

The vendors friend done all the flat viewings with us and said we could contact her if anything is wrong. So we called her and she arranged an engineer for Wednesday and also said it's got a full service history and will give us 6 months warranty for piece of mind since its quite old.

Annoyingly the engineer turned it on and it worked. When we moved in Thursday, it was broken again. Engineer back out on Friday, said he got it working but it's dangerous and advised us to leave it off. He will be back on Monday with a replacement part, leaving us with no heating or hot water for the weekend.

I'm not filled with confidence hearing it could explode after the first engineer just turned it on and said its fine. I haven't even seen paperwork proving the service history. There's also a lot of minor things like doors not closing, bath trims not fitting, etc. I'm not sure is there such a thing as a snagging list for a newly renovated old build tenement flat.

Is there anything I should be doing other than budgeting for a new boiler in the coming years

IIRC you have purchased a property in Scotland. Typically these days, contracts for Scottish property purchases are written according to a set of Standard Clauses; these vary throughout the country. The typical set for Edinburgh & Glasgow reads;

CENTRAL HEATING ETC.

(a) The Seller undertakes that any systems or appliances of a working nature (including central heating, water, drainage, electric and gas) forming part of the Property will be in working order commensurate with age as at the Date of Settlement.

(b) The Seller will make good any defect which prevents any system or appliance being in such order provided said defect is intimated in writing within 5 working days of settlement. Failing such intimation, the Purchaser will be deemed to be satisfied as to
the position.

(c) The Seller will only be responsible for carrying out any necessary repairs to put any system or appliance into such order and shall have no liability for any element of upgrading (except to the extent such upgrading is required to put any such system or
appliance into such order).

(d) The lack of any regular service or maintenance of any system or appliance or the fact that it may no longer comply with current installation regulations shall not, of itself, be deemed to be a defect.

(e) The Purchaser shall be entitled to execute any necessary repairs at the expense of the Seller without reference to the Seller or the Seller’s tradesmen (i) in the event of an emergency; (ii) in the event that the Seller’s tradesmen do not inspect the alleged
defects within 5 working days of intimation; or (iii) in the event that any necessary repairs are not carried out within 5 working days of inspection.

(f) The Seller confirms that he has received no notice or intimation from any third party that any system (or any part thereof) is in an unsafe or dangerous condition."

You need to read your contract. If you only had 5 working days then you're out of time.

akira181

I notified the main point of contact (the vendors friend, whom we also negotiated the price with) of the boiler issues via text message the day after the keys.

I remember reading that clause in my contract, just can't remember what box I put it in to check.

I'm confident it will get fixed, kinda just wondering what happened if its unrepairable or the service history doesn't exist

justjohn

Get on to your solicitor. We just sold a house last week. think it is standard now you have a 5 day warranty on items that you could not have known were broken when you viewed the house. Provided repair is over 300 pound. That's the clause that was in our missives. THE CLAUSE IS TIME CRITICAL SO DO NOT DELAY.

AdrianC

I do wish people wouldn't say "new flat", when it clearly isn't.
Likewise, I do wish people would clearly state which region of the country they're in, given that there are very different laws in Scotland or Northern Ireland to what's applicable to the vast majority of people, those in England and Wales.

davidmcn

akira181 wrote: »

I notified the main point of contact (the vendors friend, whom we also negotiated the price with) of the boiler issues via text message the day after the keys.

The normal procedure would be that you tell your solicitor (which I assume you haven't), and they notify the vendor's solicitor. So if the date of entry was last Monday then I suspect you're already out of time, unless the vendor is happy to accept that (a) a text message constitutes "writing" and (b) sending it to the vendor's friend constitutes notice to the vendor (both of which I think are doubtful).

I'm confident it will get fixed, kinda just wondering what happened if its unrepairable or the service history doesn't exist

All they're contractually required to do (if you had given notice in time) is get it working. The service history or anything else is stuff you ought to have checked before you concluded missives.