House for sale with leased boiler

SSW83

Hi all,

We have seen a property which we really like, and are considering putting in an offer, but during our second viewing today we found out the boiler in the house is leased for £38 per month. This is obviously not something we would want to continue with, as it does not seem like good value for money. So, common sense tells me the leasing company would come and remove the boiler, leaving the house with no boiler installed. Is that correct? I'm assuming the leasing company can't force the new householders to take over the contract, can they? TIA.

AFF8879

The lease contract would be between the boiler company and the sellers, not the house. So no, you would not have to take over liability for the monthly payments if you would rather purchase a new boiler directly.

eddddy

Different boiler companies probably have different terms, but at least one works like this...

If the customer wants to sell their house, they have 2 choices:

1) Persuade the new owner to take over the agreement

2) Pay a lump sum to end the lease agreement (and keep the boiler)


(The boiler company won't be interested in taking away a second-hand boiler.)

So I guess you will want the seller to take option 2 - and pay the lump sum.

MiserlyMartin

Seconded. The seller would be silly to leave the house without a boiler and you have no obligation to continue the lease agreement. They will have to pay the lump sum to pay the boiler lease off.

diggingdude

I agree get them to pay it off. My parents had to force sellers to settle one once. They weren't happy but then they should have been upfront from the start

SSW83

Thanks for all the replies.

It does seem the current homeowner would have to settle if we were to not continue the lease. The current homeowner has said the settlement fee would be around £5k! Does that sound right? That sounds crazy to me, especially as the boiler looked like a basic model.

Grenage

SSW83 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.

It does seem the current homeowner would have to settle if we were to not continue the lease. The current homeowner has said the settlement fee would be around £5k! Does that sound right? That sounds crazy to me, especially as the boiler looked like a basic model.

That's how these companies make money; 'low monthly payments' that end up costing twice as much.


Not your problem; it's the seller's fault.

Smodlet

5K??? On top of all those £38s for however many months? Yeah, that's really reasonable. 5K is only about twice what a new, basic boiler would cost fitted, bearing in mind the labour is about half of the cost. Just a boiler in a box would cost around £1200, I reckon (ours is 3 years old so it is not that long ago I looked into this)

Why do you care, OP? It is not your problem and certainly not your cost. The sellers will have this issue with any other buyer unless they find one as clueless as they appear to have been when they signed this lease.

A pay day loan would have made as much sense if they could not get reasonable credit from a high street bank or reputable credit card. At least they might one day have paid off a loan; with this lease they will be paying forever, even if the boiler dies, as the company will just replace it and keep on bleeding them dry.

"Boiler for life"? Millstone, more like. Perhaps they have learned their lesson. They should be glad to be free of these leeches, imho.

AdrianC

Brighthouse have moved into central heating...?

The vendor has a choice. He can pay out of his contract, or the sale price can come down £5k so you can pay out of it, or he can find another buyer.

eddddy

FWIW, the £38 per month might well include breakdown cover and annual servicing.

(But it's questionable whether you need breakdown cover on a newish boiler, that might still be under warranty.)

But as others say, buying anything like that on 'Finance' is likely to work out very expensive.

G_M

Any idea how old the boiler is? And whether the annual charge has included servicing? ie when was it last serviced?