Electrical issue

Suseka97

I think you're being generous in offering £300 as a gesture of goodwill, when you have already reduced the price.  I'd have to go with Davesnave in that if you offer a further reduction, you may be signalling that you are now desperate to keep this sale on track and he/she may come up with other 'issues' later in the process.

You have your own survey which disputes what he claims his survey states - so I'd be sticking with mine and asking him to provide the actual extract of the report, rather than him supposedly paraphrasing or (more likely) misquoting its content.  Or just say a firm NO! 

MaryNB

Do you know what the homebuyers report valued the house at?
My report had a few reds but the surveyor valued it at what I'm paying so I didn't bother asking for a reduction. He said the house was as expected for a property of the type and age, and I would agree based on my experience as a tenant in similar properties. None of them are major fixes and I specifically set my budget so I would have funds to do some work when I moved in. Is your buyer expecting a 100% perfect property??

Jeepers_Creepers

This is a smaller property, I presume - a one or two bed flat? It has a single ring main serving all the sockets except the kitchen - it's good that's separate.

The rest of the house's sockets are protected by a 32A MCB - that's well over 7kW of simultaneous consumption (ie. a lot - ever run 3 or 4 electric fan heaters at the same time?) - and the actual wiring is comfortably safe to around 50+A, but, of course, is prevented from getting anywhere close to that by the 32A breaker. 

So the potential buyer is talking complete poo about '...avoiding overloading'. Clearly they just want extra sockets to be fitted, which would be on a new and separate circuit. That would be nice. But is not remotely essential. And every chance they'd leave things as they are and just pocket the £1k if you gave it to them. (I would...)

If he/she wants to add multi-socket adaptors or extension cables, that's their call - I have a couple in use in my own house (this PC, for example, is on one as it also needs a monitor and printer) - and it's up to them to do this safely and not make it a trip hazard. (Again, socket adaptors and extension cables are limited and protected by their fuses, total max 13A).

 You say "I’m not in a chain, I have no great urgency to sell...it is already £8,000 off the asking price and I’ve included free standing white goods at his request within that offer because they weren’t originally." I think that's your answer.

With these kinds of situations, I think it comes down to whether the issues highlighted in reports are genuine or speculative or just 'covering one's bottom' or even 'trying it on'. You balance that with the asking price and how desperate you are. 

I personally think you've done enough. 

AskAsk

i had a consumer unit changed recently with EICR done, as the electrician is supposed to do a condition inspection before he installs the new unit.  he also needs to issue a certificate of compliance through niceic if you don't want building regs to come round and sign off.  i paid £360 in total but i got a particularly cheap quote.  i would think the standard cost would be £450 to £500 for this work.  so you agreeing to give him £500 towards this is reasonable.

foxy-stoat

Pull the gesture of good will off the table and tell the EA to get more viewings as he clearly isn't a serious buyer.

Jeepers_Creepers

AskAsk said:

i had a consumer unit changed recently with EICR done, as the electrician is supposed to do a condition inspection before he installs the new unit.  he also needs to issue a certificate of compliance through niceic if you don't want building regs to come round and sign off.  i paid £360 in total but i got a particularly cheap quote.  i would think the standard cost would be £450 to £500 for this work.  so you agreeing to give him £500 towards this is reasonable.

It's unlikely a new CU alone will 'sort' it - it would also need a new ring to serve half the property and more sockets added so it'll have two circuits each with its own MCB.

Nice to have - but not necessary.

Mickey666

Robin9 said:

AdrianC said:

"Needs more sockets" is a convenience thing. If anything, it'll increase the load that can be put on the wiring and the consumer unit...

Agree with "convenience" but not with the loading comment - it can be a safety issue.  The use of double and triple plug in sockets can lead to overloading and heating 

Please explain how the use of correctly fused double/triple plug-in sockets can lead to overloading.  Or those 4 or 6-way extension blocks come to that.

Yes, it would be physically possible to plug in 2,3,4 or 6 electric fires into a single wall socket but what do you think will happen?  Right - the fuse will blow.  That’s what they are for.  Protection against overloading.  Incidentally, having lots of wall sockets is no protection against overloading the ring-main wiring either.  It would is still possible to plug in more devices than the circuit could supply but of course the CU fuse/MCB would then blow - again providing the protection required.

As for the buyer, seems to me like they keep pushing against an open door.  £8k off the asking price, white goods for free and now this lame excuse for another £1000 reduction.  I know it’s easy for anyone on a forum who is not emotionally invested in the sale to say walk away, but that would certainly be my instinct in this case.  The buyer is taking liberties, to put it politely.

AskAsk

Jeepers_Creepers said:

AskAsk said:

i had a consumer unit changed recently with EICR done, as the electrician is supposed to do a condition inspection before he installs the new unit.  he also needs to issue a certificate of compliance through niceic if you don't want building regs to come round and sign off.  i paid £360 in total but i got a particularly cheap quote.  i would think the standard cost would be £450 to £500 for this work.  so you agreeing to give him £500 towards this is reasonable.

It's unlikely a new CU alone will 'sort' it - it would also need a new ring to serve half the property and more sockets added so it'll have two circuits each with its own MCB.

Nice to have - but not necessary.

my consumer unit looked a little bit like the OP.  i needed EICR done so i thought it was an opportune time to get the consumer unit updated.  the new unit has some spare fuses for future use and if i sell the house, it looks better than the old consumer unit.

Robin9

@ Mickey666    See this mornings BBC Morning Live at 23/24 mins 

Jeepers_Creepers

AskAsk said:

Jeepers_Creepers said:

AskAsk said:

i had a consumer unit changed recently with EICR done, as the electrician is supposed to do a condition inspection before he installs the new unit.  he also needs to issue a certificate of compliance through niceic if you don't want building regs to come round and sign off.  i paid £360 in total but i got a particularly cheap quote.  i would think the standard cost would be £450 to £500 for this work.  so you agreeing to give him £500 towards this is reasonable.

It's unlikely a new CU alone will 'sort' it - it would also need a new ring to serve half the property and more sockets added so it'll have two circuits each with its own MCB.

Nice to have - but not necessary.

my consumer unit looked a little bit like the OP.  i needed EICR done so i thought it was an opportune time to get the consumer unit updated.  the new unit has some spare fuses for future use and if i sell the house, it looks better than the old consumer unit.

But there is nothing wrong with the OP's CU - it even has three spare spaces, one of which is RCD protected. You could even add a new ring circuit to this same CU. It wouldn't make sense for just the CU to be replaced - simply no reason to - unless new circuits were also added and you wanted the latest shiny CU. But even this isn't necessary.