Buying a house with 18 year old boiler - renegotiate price?

NewB

We've had an offer accepted on a house that we love, at the top end of our budget. In the process of getting the survey done and cross checking with the sellers questionnaire, we now know the boiler and heating system is nearly 20 years old.

I don't know at the moment what make the boiler is, nor the type - I can ask the seller, but not til the new year.

Would you say that the age of the heating system is cause to try to reduce the offer amount by a few grand? The survey hasn't brought anything major up but there are a variety of smaller jobs which will each cost a few hundred quid - air bricks, timber treatment and so on.

I'm a terrible negotiator! But I'm worried about the prospect of needing to spend another £4-5k on a boiler and heating system in the near future :eek:

Thanks.

parking_question_chap

Where is the boiler in the property?
If its in a clear location many sellers will assume you realised the age and might be surprised at the request.

Cakeguts

The boiler aspect will probably have been factored into the asking price.

babyblade41

On the sellers information forms it normally asks if boilers have been serviced and if they have to provide a copy of the last one done... it may be good for a year or two it may break down the day you move in.
You can ask to reduce the offer ..seller may agree or may not

It's not something I would reduce my offer on if the boiler is serviced but you can but ask

csgohan4

you can try and reduce, but the vendor could tell you no and remarket, is it worth doing that?


My parents had a 27 year boiler before it packed in. When you own a house you will have more than a boiler to worry about


a decent boiler costs around 2-3 K, you need some repair funds anyways for stuff like this. If you don't, you may find owning a house is going to be more trouble for you, as there's no LL to get repairs done

beedeedee

Our boiler is coming up to 30 years old, serviced regularly and our heating engineer says he will keep it going efficiently till he can no longer get the parts - which could be 20 years or more!
In his words "there's less to go wrong than in more modern ones"....
We wouldn't reduce the price on the house just because of the boiler.

AdrianC

Was there a good reason you didn't even take the quickest of looks at the boiler before deciding on how much to offer?

Renegotiation is for things that have come to light since the offer, that you couldn't have been expected to notice before.

Tom99

A new boiler will cost about £2,000. The existing one may last for years but it will not be as efficient. Trying to knock even £2,000 off the price may well put the sellers back-up. They might even tell you to get lost and put the property back on the market.

lisyloo

We had a new boiler recently for just under £2k (5 bed house if it makes any difference).

I would say no don’t bother, partly because £2k isnt worth quibbling over.
Also why should they take the whole hit? Your not buying a new property so it should be more like 50/50 and £1k certainly isn’t worth jeopardising the relationship over.

When you buy a house some things will be newer some things will be older, I don’t think it’s significant enough to renegotiate and if it was you shouldn’t expect the seller to take 100% of the hit to put you in a brand new position.

NewB

Thank you all so much - really helpful to have consistent feedback! I'm inclined to agree, I felt uncomfortable at the thought of haggling over it, but as this is the first older house that we've bought, I wasn't sure if it was the sort of thing people did as a matter of course. Good point that renegotiation should be for things that have come to light since the offer was accepted.

Yes we did look at it, we could see it wasn't new and I see now that we were foolish not to ask more about it before making our offer. It hasn't been serviced, was planning to arrange that as a follow up to our survey so we know what to expect / budget for. Am cheered to hear of old boilers going for years though!

We do own our current property, but as it's a flat there's been hardly anything that needed doing other than superficial work - and it has a communal boiler, so have no experience of replacing...

Mojisola

NewB wrote: »

Am cheered to hear of old boilers going for years though!

Some companies will tell you that an old boiler can't be repaired because they make more from you buying a new boiler.

If that happens, it's worth getting a second opinion.