Plumbing & Electric issues - covered up and lied to by sellers

Thrugelmir

Do you have legal cover with your house insurance policy? 

davidmcn

User197098 said:

Deleted_User said:

What country are you in? Pretty sure you have more protections in scotland than in england for stuff like this.    In England then you are doing well to even get an offer of payment then ignored, most will ignore it completely.

I assume your homebuyers report stated that they couldnt test the electrics or the plumbing as they werent qualified to do it?   Did you follow this up in any way with electricians report or plumbers reports?

In Northern Ireland. The home buyer's report stated he was unable to check the meter and the consumer unit because the garage was locked, but yet the meter & consumer unit are located under the stairs.....

He just said you should ask an appropriately qualified person to inspect the electrics.

We didn't follow these up because when we met with our solicitor after sending him the home buyer's report he went through it with us and said there's nothing of concern on it.

Yes, about the stuff the surveyor could actually report on. The solicitor hadn't even been to the house, obviously they'd have even less idea than the surveyor about what state the electrics were in.

Scotbot

If major electrical work was done the buyer should  have declared it on the property information  form (PIF) there solicitor will have sent them and provided the safety certificate . Your solicitor should have advised if there was no certificate.  So it sounds like they didn't declare it which probably means either they didn't do the work or it was too long ago for the documents to be valid. Plus you will have been sent a copy of the PIF and should have checked what was declared. You won't get anywhere  if you try to pursue this as it was down to you the buyer to confirm via your solicitor that the work had been done. Word of mouth promises are worth the paper they are written on i,e zero.
If it makes you feel any better I got an electrical survey on my house before I bought it and was advised some work was needed at a cost of about £1000. Ended up being 3 times that as when they started the work they found some major issues.  So even if you had got an electrical check you could still have ended up with a big bill.

zvonkokracun

has anybody got a suggestion for a single lever low-pressure kitchen mixer tap which works ?
i replaced my monoblock dual lever mixer with a new one ( advertised down to 0.5 bar )  and now suddenly i only get a fraction of the hot water out of the tap. i have a non pressurized system.

davidmcn

zvonkokracun said:

has anybody got a suggestion for a single lever low-pressure kitchen mixer tap which works ?
i replaced my monoblock dual lever mixer with a new one ( advertised down to 0.5 bar )  and now suddenly i only get a fraction of the hot water out of the tap. i have a non pressurized system.

I think you want the DIY forum rather than this one.

davilown

User197098 said:

Last year we purchased our first home. We had sent out someone to carry out the Home Buyer's report and there was nothing major noted. We also spoke with the previous owners as we knew them through a family friend. They told us when they purchased the house around 10 years ago they had it re-wired and had gutted out the place and the only things original were the door frames. This was lies. There were also heating & plumbing issues. On the handover day, after the seller's handed over the keys they sent me a text message to say they've handed them over. Once I collected the keys and went to the property I received another text saying how they noticed a small leak in the attic when they were moving out but it's probably just a simple fix and if we get a plumber to fix it they'll cover the cost. (https://imgur.com/gallery/qTYUISn)

This was no simple fix. They had the overflow pipe covered and piped into the main gutter to hide the water from constantly shooting out the over flow pipe when the heating was on (which is what would happen to let you know there is a problem somewhere). We had to have all of our radiators power flushed, the plumber was here from 9am -7pm that day and used 2-3 bottles of the stuff when he said normally you use a small bit and it will clear the system. He said it's the worst house he's ever come across and he was only able to clear 3/7 radiators so we had to get new ones. That mess with the pipes in the attic had to be corrected, we also needed a new boiler. To this day our heating is still not perfect and our hot water is non-existent. 

When I text the previous owner on the weekend we got the keys asking if there was anything wrong with the heating (as nothing was heating up when we turned it on) she said no there's nothing wrong and she found it was a very easy house to heat. After numerous plumbers visited the house and told me just how bad it was, we got onto our solicitor (this was probably a week after we got the keys) and we were to keep him updated with costs involved. He sent the sellers a letter but they've ignored it and she has since text me saying how dare I send her a solicitors letter and that she will pay up and she never said she wouldn't pay up. Yet here we are many months later and she's just ignoring my texts and hasn't paid a penny. So far we've spent thousands on the heating alone and now another issue is our electrics. I got an electrician out to upgrade our fuse box as it was a really old one in the house. He said the electrics in the house are a mess and it's the worst house he's also come across. He said the house will have to be rewired but if we're every planning on moving out of this house not to bother as it will be so much hassle. But the way I see it we'll be here for at least 5 years anyway and you don't want to have to worry about whether the house is going to go up in flames or not. 

So basically, the plumbing in the house is a mess, the house will need to be repiped and it will need rewired too. What I'm wondering is would anyone have any idea on how much it would cost to get all new piped in a 3 bed semi-detached and to have the house rewired and replastered? Would this be something we could claim under our house insurance to have done? We can't afford to do any of this work and had we have known these problems existed we wouldn't have bought the house. The house has already had about 4 leaks in it, 2 incidents where a fire could've been caused from the bad electrics. So I'm thinking would the house insurance be able to cover this work before something serious occurs, or would they just cover you AFTER the house were to flood or go on fire?

So reading what you’ve said, the vendor should have paid for the small leak to be fixed. 

All the rest is unlucky, next time, look for the issues. Plumbers saying this is the worst they’ve seen is probably just normal as well. The overflow will only be the cold water tank in the attic not stopping filling when full. Same as a toilet cistern.

all the rest is just normal household costs.

with the electrics, did you get an electrical check done? If not, well sorry that’s your issue.

All replastered? For pipework? Assuming you don’t have a solid floor then no replastering needed. Even if there is concrete floors, the the pipe will just run in the surface.

ss2020jd

This would be most buyers’ nightmare but agree that any major rewiring should have had an https://www.niceic.com/ certificate or at least be checked by building control if it was part of a new extension etc. The solicitor should have asked to see relevant paperwork if they declare it on the form. I had work done over 12 years ago but remember driving my builder mad to make sure I had it as it had to be shown to building control at the time and again for the sale. That doesn’t help much I’m sure but I don’t think insurance can help unless somebody missed something. However if the seller deliberately misleads you and covers things up you may be able to take advice as to any possible recourse. 

Electrical certification for new installations, alterations or additions

Electrical Installation Certificates (EICs) and Minor Electrical Installation Works Certificates (MEIWCs) provide you, as the person responsible for the safety of an electrical installation, with a declaration that the new installation, or alteration or addition, is safe to use at the time it was put into service.

Keeping hold of these certificates also provides a basis for any further inspection and testing, as they can help save on costly exploratory work which might otherwise be needed in future. Additionally, in the event of a claim that injury or fire was caused by an electrical installation, certificates are documentary evidence which help show that the installation had been installed to a satisfactory standard of safety.

The EIC will indicate whether the electrical work that has been carried out is:
 

• New - where the whole installation has been installed as new, if a complete rewire has been carried out.

• Addition - applies if an existing installation has been modified by adding one or more new circuits.

• Alteration - applies where one or more existing circuits have been modified or extended (for example to add a socket), or items such as a consumer unit (fusebox) and switching equipment have been replaced.

An EIC must be issued for all new electrical installations. It may also be required for an alteration or addition to the installation – depending upon whether or not a new circuit has been installed. Where an alteration or addition is carried out but does not include a new circuit, a MEIWC or an EIC may be used.