Misled by seller?

inevitableraisin

Hey everyone!

Hoping I can get a little advice. I'm pretty sure myself and an electrician were intentionally misled by a seller. I'm just wondering out of the seller (and EA), electrician and myself: who's at fault here?

Completed on a house on a couple of months ago. Before exchanging I had requested an electrical certificate. The seller provided a DEICR (Domestic Electrical Installation Condition Report) which was conducted by a qualified electrician. The flat was marked as 'unsatisfactory' but it's a period property, so I was expecting that. I scrutinised the report to ensure there was nothing too severe and everything was in working order. Nothing came up so I proceeded to complete.

Fast forward to moving in. I now noticed that none of the wall lights in the living room were working - they had no bulbs in. I assumed the seller just took the bulbs with her to save money.

I then got an electrician to put up some new wall lights - coincidentally it's the same electrician who did the report. Anyways, so it turns out that the wiring for the wall lights is absolutely screwed and will cost upwards of a £1,000 to fix. The lights weren't even attached to the switch.

The electrician claims that because when they came, there were no bulbs in the lights, they weren't expected to add them in and test. They just did general safety testing and it looked ok.

I'm pretty sure that the seller knew what they were doing by removing the bulbs, and I think the electrician may not have completed their report correctly. I'm not sure if I can prove any of this though, or what it means if I could.

What do you think? Just accept it I've likely been schooled, take a deep breath and move on?

Doozergirl

£1,000 to wire in wall lights? Er, okay.

That said, there's a reason why you commission your own reports and don't ask vendors to do it. It's so you know exactly what has been looked at.

Presumably if it wasn't tested, it isn't on the report and they haven't certified the condition of them or promised anything.

Brilley

..caveat emptor....

cloo

I don't think this is worth following up - less stress just to deal with the issue ultimately

ReadingTim

The report would have been technically absolutely accurate as to what it did cover, but would have also come with a range of caveats, disclaimers, limitations etc as to what it did not cover.

I suspect your error was to assume the report would volunteer more information than it did - whereas it stuck to answering only the specific questions asked, and didn't appreciate the bias. This is hardly surprising given you didn't pay for the report - the seller did.

Finally, even if it did cost £1k to rectify (and I'd get a range of quote from other electricians before believing that figure too much), this will be a cheaper, quicker and less stressful way of fixing the problem than trying to pursue the seller, and ultimately failing.

Takmon

inevitableraisin wrote: »

Hey everyone!

Hoping I can get a little advice. I'm pretty sure myself and an electrician were intentionally misled by a seller. I'm just wondering out of the seller (and EA), electrician and myself: who's at fault here?

Completed on a house on a couple of months ago. Before exchanging I had requested an electrical certificate. The seller provided a DEICR (Domestic Electrical Installation Condition Report) which was conducted by a qualified electrician. The flat was marked as 'unsatisfactory' but it's a period property, so I was expecting that. I scrutinised the report to ensure there was nothing too severe and everything was in working order. Nothing came up so I proceeded to complete.

Fast forward to moving in. I now noticed that none of the wall lights in the living room were working - they had no bulbs in. I assumed the seller just took the bulbs with her to save money.

I then got an electrician to put up some new wall lights - coincidentally it's the same electrician who did the report. Anyways, so it turns out that the wiring for the wall lights is absolutely screwed and will cost upwards of a £1,000 to fix. The lights weren't even attached to the switch.

The electrician claims that because when they came, there were no bulbs in the lights, they weren't expected to add them in and test. They just did general safety testing and it looked ok.

I'm pretty sure that the seller knew what they were doing by removing the bulbs, and I think the electrician may not have completed their report correctly. I'm not sure if I can prove any of this though, or what it means if I could.

What do you think? Just accept it I've likely been schooled, take a deep breath and move on?

Well no wonder the report isn't accurate you completed on a house but were provided a certificate for a flat.. oh dear...

But on a serious note when you viewed the flat did you not test any of the light and other electrics yourself or even notice that bulbs were missing?.
When i view a property i view it once to see if i like it but always go back for at least once subsequent viewing to have a good look and check everything i want to be working and see what needs doing. If you completely missed the bulbs were missing then it can't have been very important to you.

Plus getting a report from the seller isn't the best idea because they have a vested interest in choosing someone who make the place appear better than it is.

Hasbeen

inevitableraisin wrote: »

Hey everyone!

Hoping I can get a little advice. I'm pretty sure myself and an electrician were intentionally misled by a seller. I'm just wondering out of the seller (and EA), electrician and myself: who's at fault here?

Completed on a house on a couple of months ago. Before exchanging I had requested an electrical certificate. The seller provided a DEICR (Domestic Electrical Installation Condition Report) which was conducted by a qualified electrician. The flat was marked as 'unsatisfactory' but it's a period property, so I was expecting that. I scrutinised the report to ensure there was nothing too severe and everything was in working order. Nothing came up so I proceeded to complete.

Fast forward to moving in. I now noticed that none of the wall lights in the living room were working - they had no bulbs in. I assumed the seller just took the bulbs with her to save money.

I then got an electrician to put up some new wall lights - coincidentally it's the same electrician who did the report. Anyways, so it turns out that the wiring for the wall lights is absolutely screwed and will cost upwards of a £1,000 to fix. The lights weren't even attached to the switch.

The electrician claims that because when they came, there were no bulbs in the lights, they weren't expected to add them in and test. They just did general safety testing and it looked ok.

I'm pretty sure that the seller knew what they were doing by removing the bulbs, and I think the electrician may not have completed their report correctly. I'm not sure if I can prove any of this though, or what it means if I could.

What do you think? Just accept it I've likely been schooled, take a deep breath and move on?

Is it a flat or a house? If flat more difficult to run cables. If house usually easier.

£1000 for some wall lights? really! get another quote.

But these days people are moving away from wall lights anyway so 60s to 80s look. So perhaps go for more modern centre lights with dimmer? a lot cheaper.:)

inevitableraisin

Thanks for the responses everyone!

I can confirm it's a flat - sorry, didn't proof read which is a nice metaphor for how I got into this mess.

Anyways, £1,000 likely is steep but they've said they'll need to rewire the whole room and everything that entails (removing floor, walls etc).

I didn't check the bulbs. I had viewings in the day time and just assumed they'd work. I'm a FTB and clearly naively just assumed that the seller wouldn't act in such bad faith. Add in the oven handle stuck on with blue tac (it's no longer stuck!) and these has been a pretty big lesson in what to look out for when going on viewings.

Anyways, the advice is pretty unanimous - I guess I'll just move on and avoid the stress! Thanks everyone - lessons learnt.

[Deleted User]

See if you can get replacement screws for the door handle, but if the oven is knackered generally, its probably dangerous so worth looking at complete replacement.

Rather than paying for a complete rewire why not get one or two floor standing lamps if you want subtle lighting?

Jumblebumble

inevitableraisin wrote: »

Hey everyone!

Hoping I can get a little advice. I'm pretty sure myself and an electrician were intentionally misled by a seller. I'm just wondering out of the seller (and EA), electrician and myself: who's at fault here?

Completed on a house on a couple of months ago. Before exchanging I had requested an electrical certificate. The seller provided a DEICR (Domestic Electrical Installation Condition Report) which was conducted by a qualified electrician. The flat was marked as 'unsatisfactory' but it's a period property, so I was expecting that. I scrutinised the report to ensure there was nothing too severe and everything was in working order. Nothing came up so I proceeded to complete.

Fast forward to moving in. I now noticed that none of the wall lights in the living room were working - they had no bulbs in. I assumed the seller just took the bulbs with her to save money.

I then got an electrician to put up some new wall lights - coincidentally it's the same electrician who did the report. Anyways, so it turns out that the wiring for the wall lights is absolutely screwed and will cost upwards of a £1,000 to fix. The lights weren't even attached to the switch.

The electrician claims that because when they came, there were no bulbs in the lights, they weren't expected to add them in and test. They just did general safety testing and it looked ok.

I'm pretty sure that the seller knew what they were doing by removing the bulbs, and I think the electrician may not have completed their report correctly. I'm not sure if I can prove any of this though, or what it means if I could.

What do you think? Just accept it I've likely been schooled, take a deep breath and move on?

I am sorry to say you asked for a report and ON THE FACE OF IT that is exactly what you got.
The electrician has did not even need to be discussing about this with you let alone taking responsibility as he has no contract
No one sold you working wall lights.
The vendor could argue that your surveyor should have spotted this.
You ought to get a second opinion as the electrician sounds to me to be a bit of a clown if he did not test all the wiring regardless of bulbs or not ( unless the vendor asked him not to test the wall lights !) and I would not be inclined to totally trust him.

Jumblebumble

quantumlobster

OP: yeah, you've been schooled. Move on.

OTOH, next time you buy a house, you'll know to try all the lights - and if there's no bulb, make sure to ask the seller to put one in