Bought a house with dangerous electrics(Scotland)

jojowig

Good Evening,

I am looking to see if anyone has encountered this before and has any success stories or advice to assist.  I have recently bought a home for my children and I.  When we entered the house I started looking at the electrics and ordered a safety report for the property.  This has confirmed that the works carried out by the previous owners has infact rendered the electrics unsafe.  All the sockets etc have been replaced with metal and have no earth wires.  Has anyone successfully been through the small claims court and been successful.  The HRP said it was a 2 but unfortunately the house is so unsafe I can't live in it until the wiring is done.

Section62

jojowig said:

All the sockets etc have been replaced with metal and have no earth wires.

Even if the socket plates were plastic it would still be unsafe having no 'earth' wire connected to them.  So are you sure this is right? Or is it just the lighting with missing 'earth' wires?

Most domestic wiring is done using cables known as 'Twin and Earth' (T&E), so it is difficult to understand how the sockets couldn't have an 'earth' wire available to connect to them, unless one of the more specialist wiring methods has been used - for example separate conductors (wires) in conduit.  But then that would tend to imply installation by someone who knew what they were doing and it would be unlikely for them to then go on to install un'earth'ed sockets.

It's a long shot, but IIRC it was acceptable to use screwed metal conduit as the 'earth' conductor, which was occasionally used for domestic installations. So it is possible someone not familiar with that arrangement may just see the 'live'(Red/Brown) and neutral wires and assume there is no 'earth' wire to connect to.  Pure speculation by me though.

The point being that sockets without 'earth' wires is so unusual you may want to be absolutely sure of the facts before starting anything 'legal'.

Ms_Chocaholic

Did you get a survey prior to purchasing

Herzlos

The home report would be a visual inspection of the electrics only. Have you had an electrician in to assess it and make changes?

_Penny_Dreadful

jojowig said:

Good Evening,

I am looking to see if anyone has encountered this before and has any success stories or advice to assist.  I have recently bought a home for my children and I.  When we entered the house I started looking at the electrics and ordered a safety report for the property.  This has confirmed that the works carried out by the previous owners has infact rendered the electrics unsafe.  All the sockets etc have been replaced with metal and have no earth wires.  Has anyone successfully been through the small claims court and been successful.  The HRP said it was a 2 but unfortunately the house is so unsafe I can't live in it until the wiring is done.

On what basis would you take the vendor to court?  If there is a clause within the missives and you are within the required timescale set out in the missives then you might have a claim otherwise you don't have a case.

Assuming the Scottish Standard Clauses were used then clause 4.1 says:

The Seller undertakes that any systems (or parts thereof) of a working nature
(including central heating, water, drainage, electric and gas systems) forming part of the
Property or electrical appliances whether of a moveable or integrated nature included in the
Price will be in working order commensurate with age as at the Date of Settlement.

The electric systems do work and the previous occupants managed to live there without electrocuting themselves.

Clause 4.6 says:

The Seller confirms that they have received no notice or intimation from any third
party that any such system (or any part thereof) is in an unsafe or dangerous condition

You'd have an uphill battle proving the seller knew the electrics were dangerous.  If the electrics were something you were concerned about you could have requested an EICR or made your offer conditional to having a satisfactory EICR but you didn't so I think you're just going to have to take the L on this one.

ProDave

Yes even in Scotland with a few days to report problems after a sale, I don't see a valid claim here.  The buyer should have got an EICR Electrical Installation Condition report, done prior to completing missives.

Can you tel us word for word exactly what the electrician said about the sockets?  And what did you think was wrong with them that made you get them checked?

As noted before I did once in an old house encounter a conduit system where the conduit was the only earth, but even that providing the conduit is still intact and there is a fly lead from the back box to the socket, it can still test okay.

grumbler

jojowig said:

...All the sockets etc have been replaced with metal and have no earth wires.

Does the report really say THIS?

It's really hard to believe....

ProDave

grumbler said:

jojowig said:

...All the sockets etc have been replaced with metal and have no earth wires.

Does the report really say THIS?

It's really hard to believe....

Thinking about it, it is possible in an old house to have no earth on the lighting circuit, and providing there are no other faults on that circuit it can remain in use providing all light switches are plastic and all light fittings are class 2 (you can get some metal class 2 light fittings)  I wonder if this is what the electrician meant?  If so simple fix is change back to plastic switches and class 2 light fittings.

Sockets should be earthed and have always required to be metal or plastic.

GDB2222

If it were just the metal faced sockets, those could all be replaced with plastic. That would take a couple of hours to do, at a cost of a few hundred pounds, which would probably not be worth suing for. There must be more to this than the OP is saying?

prettyandfluffy

Can the OP add photos of the relevant parts of the report, not disclosing any personal info?

theartfullodger

Metal clad sockets are sold new and may well be legal in your case (look em up on eg Screwfix).. Are you stating that there is no earth feed to all the boxes the the sockets screw into? (if so blimey....)

Having sold 3 houses in Scotland in last three years i think i had a couple of eicrs, but don't recall any purchaser getting one done, but clearly there are many checks a purchaser is at liberty to get done.  
.
Caveat emptor.