Am i overreacting about a lack of electricity on viewing? WWYD?

getmore4less

Get hold of a decent battery portable work light.

Exodi

As some have said, it may be the case that the seller hasn't lived in the property.

My property was bought from a (elderly) mother who gifted the house to her son, but he unfortunately died. 

She didn't know a single thing about the property, likely wouldn't even be able to point the house out on the street.

When I viewed, I noticed the underfloor heating wasn't working and most of the lights in the house didn't work - for this I negotiated a £10k discount, on the worse case assumption of the heating/electric. The seller agreed.

After moving in, I worked out that the underfloor heating not working was caused by a blown fuse at the back of the boiler cupboard and the reason most of the light's didn't work was simply that most of the bulbs had blown and needed replacing, and one transformer needed replacing in the kitchen. To be honest, I would have replaced all the bulbs for LED regardless, so all in all, I spent about £10 and an hour to fix all the issues.

In your case, I would really insist on working out where the meter/fuse box is - and looking. If the seller is obstructive on this, make you offer, based on the worse case scenario that the house needs a re-wire.

Personally, I don't think your suggestion of 'come back to me when the eletrics are sorted' is productive. Depending on the seller - they may have no intention of making changes to the property to the whim of strangers and intend for the property to be sold as is. Caveat Emptor.

BikingBud

Exodi said:

As some have said, it may be the case that the seller hasn't lived in the property.

My property was bought from a (elderly) mother who gifted the house to her son, but he unfortunately died. 

She didn't know a single thing about the property, likely wouldn't even be able to point the house out on the street.

When I viewed, I noticed the underfloor heating wasn't working and most of the lights in the house didn't work - for this I negotiated a £10k discount, on the worse case assumption of the heating/electric. The seller agreed.

After moving in, I worked out that the underfloor heating not working was caused by a blown fuse at the back of the boiler cupboard and the reason most of the light's didn't work was simply that most of the bulbs had blown and needed replacing, and one transformer needed replacing in the kitchen. To be honest, I would have replaced all the bulbs for LED regardless, so all in all, I spent about £10 and an hour to fix all the issues.

In your case, I would really insist on working out where the meter/fuse box is - and looking. If the seller is obstructive on this, make you offer, based on the worse case scenario that the house needs a re-wire.

Personally, I don't think your suggestion of 'come back to me when the eletrics are sorted' is productive. Depending on the seller - they may have no intention of making changes to the property to the whim of strangers and intend for the property to be sold as is. Caveat Emptor.

So you exploited a dear, poor old lady in her time of grief!

Exodi

BikingBud said:

Exodi said:

As some have said, it may be the case that the seller hasn't lived in the property.

My property was bought from a (elderly) mother who gifted the house to her son, but he unfortunately died. 

She didn't know a single thing about the property, likely wouldn't even be able to point the house out on the street.

When I viewed, I noticed the underfloor heating wasn't working and most of the lights in the house didn't work - for this I negotiated a £10k discount, on the worse case assumption of the heating/electric. The seller agreed.

After moving in, I worked out that the underfloor heating not working was caused by a blown fuse at the back of the boiler cupboard and the reason most of the light's didn't work was simply that most of the bulbs had blown and needed replacing, and one transformer needed replacing in the kitchen. To be honest, I would have replaced all the bulbs for LED regardless, so all in all, I spent about £10 and an hour to fix all the issues.

In your case, I would really insist on working out where the meter/fuse box is - and looking. If the seller is obstructive on this, make you offer, based on the worse case scenario that the house needs a re-wire.

Personally, I don't think your suggestion of 'come back to me when the eletrics are sorted' is productive. Depending on the seller - they may have no intention of making changes to the property to the whim of strangers and intend for the property to be sold as is. Caveat Emptor.

So you exploited a dear, poor old lady in her time of grief!

Once the dust had settled, I guess I did!

But from her perspective, that's the risk you take selling a property 'as-is', people would expect to price in the risk.

Thanks, now I feel guilty

EDIT: actually, it wasn't too bad for her in the end. I realised near the end of the process that the house didn't have a water account or meter - her son hadn't paid for water in the 10 years he'd lived in the property. Plus the extractor fans in the bathrooms had ducting that wasn't connected to anything, just blew into the attic... and the guttering and downpipes weren't connected anywhere, with most of them depositing the water to the side of the house. It's like things were installed just to 'look right'... but I think it's just the part and parcel of buying a house, I'm actually quite happy to be able to learn about how things work.