'Sold as seen' - what are my rights.

Bookworm105

lincroft1710 said:

"Sold as seen" does imply there may be problems. Treat anything you are not allowed to see working as there being something wrong with it. Then you won't have any unpleasant surprises when you discover there is something wrong

the vendor is a company.
the company has not lived in the property and therefore, unlike a real person selling their home, does not know about what is, or not working. Nor is the company going to spend money having stuff tested before sale as that would then leave them exposed to a liability claim 

I'd say "sold as seen" is the norm with a company vendor.

macman

It hould be perfectly obvious from a visual inspection if the services are connected or not. Are the meters and pipework in place, does the stopcock tun on the water, does the boiler at least power up?
The vendor simply has to be honest in their responses, so if they say 'don't know' you should assume that these services are not functioning, and budget accordingly. A structural survey does not cover any testing of utilities, (so, for example, it might just say 'there is a combi gas boiler situated in the kitchen, it was not in operation at the time of our survey') so if you want to find out, you will need to engage a plumber, RGI and electrician to investigate for you.
All domestic properties are effectively 'sold as seen" in England and Wales': CRA 2015 does not apply and the vendors do not have to reveal any defects they know of: they simply have to be truthful when asked, which your have been. If this aspect of purchase makes you nervous, then I would suggest that you look elsewhere.

GDB2222

Scout1990 said:

Good evening. 

We have had an offer accepted on a sold as seen property. We are currently waiting on the lenders valuation and then going to get a full survey done on the property. 

I understand that once we exchange contracts we accept any issues that the house may have. However on the lead upto that we are just trying to make sure the house has no hidden problems before we finally accept. 

We asked the estate agent to speak to the company which owns the house the other day as we wanted to see the property with the electricity, water and oil boiler on. The reply we got is they will not do that as they are not obligated to and the property is sold as seen, so no requirement to show us.

Is there any legal basis to say that we want to see the services on? 

There's clearly an implication that there's an awful lot of work to do to the services. Before spending a lot on the survey, you need to think about whether you can afford to rip the whole lot out and replace it all.

Albermarle

Is it possible that 'sold as seen ' ( which is not a legal term, for housebuying anyway) could mean.

'The house is priced competitively and whatever you may or may not find with a survey, the price will not be reduced'