Seller Has No Gas or Electricity Cerificates

TripleH

When we sold we had a full service history for our boiler but it was only years old.

Unless the property is ex rental I wouldn't expect to buy a property with either. If there was recent work done then maybe something or if the owner was obsessive about paperwork (my father had the estate agent brochure from when my parents bought their home 35+ years ago).

If a property has them then that's fantastic but not expected.

TheJP

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Buying a 1BR Victorian conversion from the 1920s and the seller, who lived there for 6 years, has no knowledge of when electrical or gas installations were completed and apparently no electricity or gas certificates. They mentioned in response to my solicitor that they had the boiler serviced in 2019, but no longer have the papers. Is this typical with homeowners? I know they don't have to be annual as with rented places, but they have no document whatsoever. They seem open to servicing the boiler, but should I do gas and electrical inspections myself? They are currently living in the house so the electrics and gas must be working, I guess. Thanks!

Very common. I have lived in my house 10 years. I have never ever had an electrical check and since I had the boiler installed I have never had it serviced. 
I don't need to. It works fine and I have no problems, so lots of homeowners don't do it for this reason. 

The current vendors were FTB 6 years ago too. I would have assumed they carried out such checks. It makes sense if you installed the boiler yourself that you wouldn't worry, but in this case the vendors have not installed it and have no knowledge of when it was installed either.

Some people do not care. I wouldn't service any boiler tbh whether I installed it or not. I don't really see any benefit to it. 

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

If you installed the boiler/depending on age and don't service it annually you lose the warranty plus the added risk of something going wrong when you actually rely on the boiler.

RS2OOO

After moving in to current property which is the first where I've had a condensing boiler, I called British Gas to carry out a service, and I watched what he did from a distance.

• Removed front cover
• Poked around with a screwdriver and looked inside from various angles
• Brushed everything inside and dusted it with a paint brush (the most time consuming part)
• Turned the Boiler on and off and rotated manual timer
• Measured gases being released from external flue
• Wiggled parts of the wiring loom (to check connections)
• Stood around for 10 mins looking at his phone.
• Replaced front cover.

Total time at the property = 22 minutes.

Literally 2 weeks later to the day the boiler packed up. Called a local independent who said it was the expansion vessel and wasn't worth spending the £350 for parts and labour to replace since the boiler was now obsolete and because no scale reducer was fitted other components were likely to be scaled up and high chance of failing in the near future.

I replaced the Boiler.

So for me, that service was a waste of time.

However, I did get the new boiler serviced after 1 year so as to maintain its 2 year warranty. Literally 1 week later it packed up. Turned out to be a bit of grit in the flow sensor which is something that would never have been picked up as it was working at the time of the service.


A boiler service certificate therefore means absolutely nothing as far as I'm concerned. However, invoices for whatever parts may have been replaced are of far higher value as they give a picture as to what proper work has been done and potential diagnostic avenues to go down were it to fail in the future.

Snookie12cat

TheJP said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Buying a 1BR Victorian conversion from the 1920s and the seller, who lived there for 6 years, has no knowledge of when electrical or gas installations were completed and apparently no electricity or gas certificates. They mentioned in response to my solicitor that they had the boiler serviced in 2019, but no longer have the papers. Is this typical with homeowners? I know they don't have to be annual as with rented places, but they have no document whatsoever. They seem open to servicing the boiler, but should I do gas and electrical inspections myself? They are currently living in the house so the electrics and gas must be working, I guess. Thanks!

Very common. I have lived in my house 10 years. I have never ever had an electrical check and since I had the boiler installed I have never had it serviced. 
I don't need to. It works fine and I have no problems, so lots of homeowners don't do it for this reason. 

The current vendors were FTB 6 years ago too. I would have assumed they carried out such checks. It makes sense if you installed the boiler yourself that you wouldn't worry, but in this case the vendors have not installed it and have no knowledge of when it was installed either.

Some people do not care. I wouldn't service any boiler tbh whether I installed it or not. I don't really see any benefit to it. 

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

If you installed the boiler/depending on age and don't service it annually you lose the warranty plus the added risk of something going wrong when you actually rely on the boiler.

I don't service my car 🤣 it never goes wrong and passes the mot every year. 

There are just different kinds of people I think - I would just pay if it went wrong rather than pay when it's fine 🤷‍♀️. I would only do the service to preserve the warranty. 

TheJP

RS2OOO said:

After moving in to current property which is the first where I've had a condensing boiler, I called British Gas to carry out a service, and I watched what he did from a distance.

• Removed front cover
• Poked around with a screwdriver and looked inside from various angles
• Brushed everything inside and dusted it with a paint brush (the most time consuming part)
• Turned the Boiler on and off and rotated manual timer
• Measured gases being released from external flue
• Wiggled parts of the wiring loom (to check connections)
• Stood around for 10 mins looking at his phone.
• Replaced front cover.

Total time at the property = 22 minutes.

Literally 2 weeks later to the day the boiler packed up. Called a local independent who said it was the expansion vessel and wasn't worth spending the £350 for parts and labour to replace since the boiler was now obsolete and because no scale reducer was fitted other components were likely to be scaled up and high chance of failing in the near future.

I replaced the Boiler.

So for me, that service was a waste of time.

However, I did get the new boiler serviced after 1 year so as to maintain its 2 year warranty. Literally 1 week later it packed up. Turned out to be a bit of grit in the flow sensor which is something that would never have been picked up as it was working at the time of the service.


A boiler service certificate therefore means absolutely nothing as far as I'm concerned. However, invoices for whatever parts may have been replaced are of far higher value as they give a picture as to what proper work has been done and potential diagnostic avenues to go down were it to fail in the future.

My boiler has a 10 year warranty, id be happy with that service if it meant that the manufacturers would replace the boiler if it packed in. Servicing a boiler for the warranty is worth the money. 

TheJP

Snookie12cat said:

TheJP said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Buying a 1BR Victorian conversion from the 1920s and the seller, who lived there for 6 years, has no knowledge of when electrical or gas installations were completed and apparently no electricity or gas certificates. They mentioned in response to my solicitor that they had the boiler serviced in 2019, but no longer have the papers. Is this typical with homeowners? I know they don't have to be annual as with rented places, but they have no document whatsoever. They seem open to servicing the boiler, but should I do gas and electrical inspections myself? They are currently living in the house so the electrics and gas must be working, I guess. Thanks!

Very common. I have lived in my house 10 years. I have never ever had an electrical check and since I had the boiler installed I have never had it serviced. 
I don't need to. It works fine and I have no problems, so lots of homeowners don't do it for this reason. 

The current vendors were FTB 6 years ago too. I would have assumed they carried out such checks. It makes sense if you installed the boiler yourself that you wouldn't worry, but in this case the vendors have not installed it and have no knowledge of when it was installed either.

Some people do not care. I wouldn't service any boiler tbh whether I installed it or not. I don't really see any benefit to it. 

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

If you installed the boiler/depending on age and don't service it annually you lose the warranty plus the added risk of something going wrong when you actually rely on the boiler.

I don't service my car 🤣 it never goes wrong and passes the mot every year. 

There are just different kinds of people I think - I would just pay if it went wrong rather than pay when it's fine 🤷‍♀️. I would only do the service to preserve the warranty. 

And when the car packs in or when you want to sell the car you'll be out of pocket.

user1977

TheJP said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Buying a 1BR Victorian conversion from the 1920s and the seller, who lived there for 6 years, has no knowledge of when electrical or gas installations were completed and apparently no electricity or gas certificates. They mentioned in response to my solicitor that they had the boiler serviced in 2019, but no longer have the papers. Is this typical with homeowners? I know they don't have to be annual as with rented places, but they have no document whatsoever. They seem open to servicing the boiler, but should I do gas and electrical inspections myself? They are currently living in the house so the electrics and gas must be working, I guess. Thanks!

Very common. I have lived in my house 10 years. I have never ever had an electrical check and since I had the boiler installed I have never had it serviced. 
I don't need to. It works fine and I have no problems, so lots of homeowners don't do it for this reason. 

The current vendors were FTB 6 years ago too. I would have assumed they carried out such checks. It makes sense if you installed the boiler yourself that you wouldn't worry, but in this case the vendors have not installed it and have no knowledge of when it was installed either.

Some people do not care. I wouldn't service any boiler tbh whether I installed it or not. I don't really see any benefit to it. 

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

You're going to have problems with a car relatively quickly if you never change the oil etc, it's not really a great comparison. I've never had my boilers serviced and never had a problem (well, none which would have been avoided by servicing).

Snookie12cat

TheJP said:

Snookie12cat said:

TheJP said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Snookie12cat said:

FataVerde said:

Buying a 1BR Victorian conversion from the 1920s and the seller, who lived there for 6 years, has no knowledge of when electrical or gas installations were completed and apparently no electricity or gas certificates. They mentioned in response to my solicitor that they had the boiler serviced in 2019, but no longer have the papers. Is this typical with homeowners? I know they don't have to be annual as with rented places, but they have no document whatsoever. They seem open to servicing the boiler, but should I do gas and electrical inspections myself? They are currently living in the house so the electrics and gas must be working, I guess. Thanks!

Very common. I have lived in my house 10 years. I have never ever had an electrical check and since I had the boiler installed I have never had it serviced. 
I don't need to. It works fine and I have no problems, so lots of homeowners don't do it for this reason. 

The current vendors were FTB 6 years ago too. I would have assumed they carried out such checks. It makes sense if you installed the boiler yourself that you wouldn't worry, but in this case the vendors have not installed it and have no knowledge of when it was installed either.

Some people do not care. I wouldn't service any boiler tbh whether I installed it or not. I don't really see any benefit to it. 

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

If you installed the boiler/depending on age and don't service it annually you lose the warranty plus the added risk of something going wrong when you actually rely on the boiler.

I don't service my car 🤣 it never goes wrong and passes the mot every year. 

There are just different kinds of people I think - I would just pay if it went wrong rather than pay when it's fine 🤷‍♀️. I would only do the service to preserve the warranty. 

And when the car packs in or when you want to sell the car you'll be out of pocket.

Hasn't happened yet 🙃 I am confident that price to repair it would be cheaper than years of services. 

I tend to run my cars into the ground. By then no one is asking for service history 🤣

I have a friend who swears by servicing everything, whether that has done her any good no one can say. I find as long as you maintain and treat things well they tend to last. 

Section62

TheJP said:

Really? That's like saying why bother servicing your car.

If you installed the boiler/depending on age and don't service it annually you lose the warranty plus the added risk of something going wrong when you actually rely on the boiler.

Unless there are parts subject to wear and tear which would be replaced during a service (e.g. the igniter on an oil boiler) there is no "added risk" of something going wrong - the existing part(s) will fail when they were going to fail.  In fact a good argument could be made that some failures might be triggered or hastened as a result of a service.

As for car servicing, the only 'work' carried out on the majority of services on modern cars is the replacement of the engine oil/filter.  The rest of the service consists of checking stuff (aka looking for faults the customer can be charged extra to fix, no matter how trivial)  If you can't change the oil yourself, get a local garage to just do an oil change in accordance with the manufacturer's recommendations.  The amount saved on 'servicing' will almost certainly offset any notional loss when selling the car without a full service history.

RS2OOO

As for cars - My main daily car gets serviced every 7000 miles regardless of what the handbook says (24,000 miles / Condition Based I believe), my 2nd car has oil changed annually regardless of miles (usually sub 1500 miles a year).

But I keep my cars forever, and doing this makes them last forever. Pulling the dip stick on my 84k miles car (the sub 1500 miles a year one) reveals nice fresh orange coloured oil. Internally the engine is like new. 

But as said, I keep them for so long all 3 of my cars are appreciating assets, the youngest being 7 years old and the oldest now 52 years old.

Unlike with Boilers, I'm a strong believer in over-servicing cars. I also believe that manufacturer service schedules are way too far apart - clearly aimed at attracting new car sales across the fleet sector, but not aimed at longevity of the car itself.