Who is responsible to boiler check prior to exchange

DullGreyGuy

FreeBear said:

DullGreyGuy said: There is no legal requirement to have a boiler serviced/inspected in an owner occupied home nor is there any requirement to keep a record if you have had it done.

But if the boiler is relatively new, the manufacturer will require annual servicing in order to maintain the warranty. No record of a service, they will void the warranty.

Warranties aren't automatically transferable and so it may well become void on the sale anyway and getting one service now wont fill in the previously missed services. 

When buying secondhand I'd base my offer on the assumption there is no warranty unless there is clear evidence that there is. Houses are the same with the white goods etc included in the sale.

NornIronRose

Thanks for posting this OP. I dropped off all my paperwork for my sale a few weeks ago and the solicitor sighed at the lack of boiler service paperwork. 
It was put in 6 years ago and has been serviced annually since then, but of course, now that I'm looking for it, I can't find the latest service record. Hoping that it won't cause too much of a problem if the warranty may not even transfer over to them. 

AlexMac

Every one of the past six homes I've bought has needed a new boiler; some immediately, some within the 1st year, all within 2-4 years.  In  each case, the boiler replacement (from £1.3k -£3.5k for a top end job with a cylinder) represented from 0.5%- 1.4% of the cost of the house.

So now, I just factor that into any offer

doodling

Hi,

Flugelhorn said:

FreeBear said:

DullGreyGuy said: There is no legal requirement to have a boiler serviced/inspected in an owner occupied home nor is there any requirement to keep a record if you have had it done.

But if the boiler is relatively new, the manufacturer will require annual servicing in order to maintain the warranty. No record of a service, they will void the warranty.

people still don't do that - our vendors did decide to get the 8 year old boiler serviced for the first time just as she put the house on the market - nothing had been done up until then, possibly as a new house she thought it was covered by the builders - who knows 

Unless the boiler was badly installed in the first place then the only real value of an annual check is to maintain the warranty.

Paying £x each year for an annual check to maintain the warranty is just like paying for insurance - if you are sufficiently rich to cope if something goes wrong then paying for insurance is probably a waste of money.

Having said that, it is probably worth having a service at something like 5 year intervals as vacuuming out the heat exchanger is a sensible thing to do at that kind of interval.

Bigphil1474

OP, personally I'd have the boiler checked after I move in even if the seller gave me a service report and gas safety certificate. You've no idea the relationship between the seller and the gas engineer. Although Gas Safe engineers have professional standards, doesn't mean that it is difficult to get a cursory once over gas safety check and/or service document.

I sold my dads house a few months ago and we got the electrics checked out through a relative - he did a proper job but could easily have done a less than proper job. My dad was an electrical engineer, old school, so we knew the electrics were tip top. For the boiler, we gave them a copy of the last British Gas service form which said they'd been to service the boiler and it was ok - not really worth the paper it was scribbled on for me, but they were happy with it.

FreeBear

Bigphil1474 said: Although Gas Safe engineers have professional standards, doesn't mean that it is difficult to get a cursory once over gas safety check and/or service document.

If the one I had installing a new boiler, the standards must be pretty low - He issued a CP12 Gas Safe certificate stating that a visual check had been made on the earth bonding. That would have been very difficult, as there was no earth cable or clamps at all. Also used 25mm pipe externally for the condensate drain when current standards (and boiler documentation) specify 32mm.

ComicGeek

If it was a shiny new boiler that the EA/sellers specifically pointed out as being lovely and new and in warranty (and the OP based their price on that), then I think the OP has a point.

If not, then it's the purchaser's responsibility to carry out any checks, as at least you can rely on them. When we bought our current house it had a 5 year old boiler with a stack of British Gas servicing sheets, the last being just days before exchange - within 3 months it had failed due to significant holes in the heat exchanger and faulty motherboard. I don't believe the boiler cover had actually been removed since installation as the casing was full of water and had completely rusted the screws, making it impossible to remove.