I am in the process of selling my house at the moment and at the 11th hour have had a visit from the buyer with an electrician..... This has led to a request to go halves on updating the electrics to current regulatory standards. I'm not too pleased about this as no electrical work was advertised when the house was sold and the old fuse board has not been retro-fitted since he came round and made the offer. What normally happens in these cases?

This is a Victorian era house which has been fully refurbished in recent times. There is an old wire type fuse board fitted and the hosue was rewired in 2000 by the previous owner. In 2007 I had some underfloor heating installed in the bathroom but no RCD was fitted. The electrician has stated that this house would be a class 1 failure if inspected. What exactly does that mean?

In fairness to him, one of the fuses is missing from the board and there is an obvious danger from this - I will rectify that asap. Do I need to do anything else? I can post more details.

Thanks in advance.

Matt

I'm not a Sparky, though I have some knowledge (A Dangerous thing)..

..sounds to me like the prospective purchaser is serious about the property..(Why else would he have gone to the trouble of bringing an electrician round?)

It would seem said purchaser is trying to knock you down at any opportunity..fitting a new CU and testing should take no more than a day, and should be in the range of £700- £1000, depending on where you are..so splitting the difference on that would not be a deal breaker, IMHO.

However if prospective purchaser is trying to get 50% of a full rewire..tell them to stuff it!!

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I Know it says I'm On-line, but I might have just left myself logged in, whilst I'm out....

Kinda depends on how badly you need to sell the house - and how the currently agreed price and the cost of the works the buyer wants to split with you sits with what you wanted to get out of the sale overall.

Only you can really answer that.

Agree to it on the basis that he gets his cut AFTER the house sale has gone through. Use an escrow service if you have to. In the scheme of things I reckon the cost will be insignificant set against the sale as a whole? Getting 'antsy' at this stage will only work in HIS favour.

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Decided to tell the buyer that I would deal with the immediate saftey concern and any modernisation of the electrics is his concern. The buyer is very serious but to me this sort of renogiation post agreement is not the way I work.

Cheers for the advice anyway.

Matt

A good solicitor will advise anyone buying a house to get an electrical condition report and this may also be required by mortgage providers. As long as you can provide the installation certificates and minor work certificates plus for work after 2004 completion certificates for work in bathroom then most will advise client that it depends on how quickly and how much they really want the house as to if to insist on the report or not. The regulations (not law) says on change of occupant the electrics should be inspected. The lack of RCD on a bathroom underfloor heating system would ring alarm bells with any electrician and they will likely be very careful once noting one serious fault like that not to miss any others.

There are two class systems the old one had 4 classes the new one 3 classes and broadly speaking 1 means dangerous, 2 means if another fault happens it could become dangerous, the others mean it can't be tested or it would have complied when fitted.

Lack of RCD with underfloor heating clearly does not comply with regulations and also it needs to have an earthed screen between live cables and floor surface. If I was testing once I found the one fault I would be looking carefully to see if it is the correct type or fitted correctly for use in a bathroom and would likely advise new owners it likely will need disconnecting to make it safe. So in real terms there is no underfloor heating. So you can't include it on the blur saying how good the house is.

I would guess the LABC was not informed when the underfloor heating was fitted? Don't answer I really don't want to know. But if that's the case a couple thousand to get rid of the house may not be such a bad deal. Likely better than admitting to buyers you broke the law.
If however you do have the paperwork maybe it's time for some one to take the LABC to court for allowing sub standard work. It seems they often take the money and run and don't do what they are paid to do.

Consider you have a bump with your car and it is the other guys fault. But you have been drinking. If he wants to settle without calling in police you may be willing to let him get away with things so the police are not involved and your not breathalysed. Not quite as bad but reading between the lines you have broken the law. And keeping the other party sweet may be a sensible approach?

The re-wire-able fuses are not really a problem but swapping a consumer unit to keep buyer sweet may be a sensible move of course this time with all the paperwork required.

P.S. from your description I would consider a code 2 failure but your not really in a position to argue.

Personally, I'd tell him to do one (thats the polite version of what I was thinking)!

I say that, because he's just a chancer hoping to get you to pay for stuff he wants doing to the house. I know of someone who recently went to view a house and his mate, a sparky, said "if you want, I'll come with and knock a report up that shows how bad the wiring is so you can knock some cash off the asking price".

What's next, plumber to condemn the heating - pay half for that. Then the builder to point out the roof and pointing. Window man to show you that the glass isn't the latest standards. Surveyer to say the house MIGHT have moved in the last 100 years. A guttering 'expert' to show you that they might have leafs in and it needs replacing as a precation to prevent damp. A energy inspection officer to show you that your house doesn't have the right kindof insulation or lightbulbs.

I could go on more, but I'm off to bed......

BG

You say this happened at the 11th hour. This suggests to me that contracts have been exchanged. Provided that the condition of the house has not deteriorated since then, you have to do nothing. The buyer has the option to default on the contract, but you keep his deposit. You then use that money to repair any problems.

If you haven't exchanged contracts (its not the 11th hour, in reality), you are vulnerable to any criticisms and suggestions and you should negotiate your way forward.

"post agreement", what does that mean? Contracts exchanged, or a chat at the door on his way out?

Crikey that a difficult one. For a start you should be grateful in this economy that you have a buyer at all. Secondly you might be on a sticky wicket with the electrics not being up to current regs if the buyer wants to push. I think you might find him pulling out because if he's in a position to buy he can pick and choose. Tough call - but its a tough sellers market

It would be interesting to know how this pans out. As far as I am aware the LABC has not prosecuted anyone for not informing them of electrical work before the work is started. They have prosecuted where people claim to be members of schemes and are not. And also prosecuted for sub-standard work. But not just for not paying the LABC fees and informing them.

So there are two separate problems.
1) The buyers solicitors could claim the work is dangerous and inform LABC who would want to find out who did the dangerous work. This would really be aimed at the electrician not you. But the LABC could insist you correct it. However I don't have all back copies of wiring regulations and I can't remember when. Now it says for bathrooms:-

701.753 Electric floor heating systems
For electric floor heating systems, only heating cables according to relevant product standards or thin sheet flexible heating elements according to the relevant equipment standard shall be erected provided that they have either a metal sheath or a metal enclosure or a fine mesh metallic grid. The fine mesh metallic grid, metal sheath or metal enclosure shall be connected to the protective conductor of the supply circuit Compliance with the latter requirement is not required if the protective measure SELV is provided for the floor heating system.
For electric floor heating systems the protective measure "protection by electrical separation is not permitted.

701.411.3.3 Additional protection by RCDs
Additional protection shall be provided for all circuits of the location, by the use of one or more RCDs having the characteristics specified in Regulation 415.1.1.

These came out in 2008 I don't have an old copy of the 2001 regulations to hand. The house re-wire would be to BS7671:1992 called 16th Edition Amendment 2 or 3 it would have been close to update time.

The underfloor heating would be to BS7671:2001 Amendment 2 also called 16 Edition and one has to look carefully at the BS number date as there were big changes in 2001 and many electricians had to re-take exams to show they were aware of the changes.

The same happened in 2008 and electricians had to re-take exams. Which makes it hard to refer to old regulations in force at the time it was installed.

I think this is the old regulation valid 2001:- 601-09-04 Electric heating units embedded in the floor and intended for heating the location may be installed below any zone provided that they are covered by an earthed metallic grid or by an earthed metallic sheath connected to the local supplementary equipotential bonding specified in Regulation 601-04.

At that time from memory there was only a requirement for RCD protection when a shower or bath was installed in another room not a bathroom. Only something installed in the old Zone 1 needed RCD protection. Because you need a tool to access the underfloor heating I would not think it needs RCD protection under BS7671:2001.

Just as I have a problem remembering so I would expect would any other electrician and if it was not required before and is required now that's a Code 4 with old system. With new system don't think it's given a code it is just pointed out but I stand to be corrected on that.

A code 1 failure means there is immediate danger i.e. live exposed wires. A common code 1 is where the blanking bits have been left off un-populated ways in a consumer unit. Where the wrong type is used so one can flick them out with your fingers rather then needing a tool then it's code 2.

Electricians will argue as to what codes to be awarded you will find the codes here http://www.esc.org.uk/industry/industry ... ce-guides/ which may interest you. Guide 4 issue 3 is new method and 2A is old method I think old method is still being used.

The codes are not part of regulations but an invention of the Electrical Safety Council to try and make it easier for non electrical people to understand how serious the faults are.

Hope that helps you and please tell us how you get on.

All of thre above electrical info from ericmark is spot on. However, conveyancing law protects un-informed (ie non trade professional) home buyers and sellers from transferring unsafe houses between each other. Thats why we engage surveyors and solicitors and pay them shed loads of cash to highlight these problems. If contracts have been signed, this means that your house has been checked, a mortgage based on value and condition is on the table, and a binding agreement is now in place.

My advice, if you have signed and exchanged contracts: talk to your solicitor. I'm certain he will tell you that you the buyer has made an offer based on what he has seen and surveyed and that a contract to buy, with no further action, is now in place. While it was "Sold Subject to Contract" he had the opportunity to fully inspect your house as far as reasonably practicable. Its now the 11th hour before the sale (contracts exchanged). He has left this issue too late.

Complete and utter rubbish. When new regs are created, they are NOT applied retrospectivly.

You are pretty much saying ANY house that is being sold that doesn't currently meet the "17th" spec should be updated before a sale or have money knocked off the asking price. I think not.

My house does not, but is perfectly safe. The previous house I had also did not and was perfectly safe.

I'd like to think the buyers like the house or they wouldn't have put an offer in (unless they offer on many houses and take their chances on who will knock the most money off - better off without these), so they are just taking their chance and testing for blood in the water. I'll bet these are the same people who ring the estate agents 1 hour before contracts are exchanged and say they want another 10k off 'because there is OTHER work they feel they need to do' - are they also on a sticky wicket there too?

We now have codes C1, C2, and C3. What we want is to see no C1 or C2 entries. The C3 is basic the same as old Code 4 in that it does not comply with latest regulations but did comply with one before. However as you read the examples it clearly does not go back to the date the installation was installed as it gives a ELCB-v instead of a ELCB-c as a Code C2 and at one time these were the bees knees yet now outlawed. For some reason code 3 has gone. So extent of inspection is now in writing, so just comment fuse sealed or door locked.

Some of the examples don't make sense. Missing label saying do not remove Code C2 but miss the wire out completely and it's not a departure. So clearly some of the coding is down to the electrician and common sense. I would consider missing label as no more than code C3 as it does not increase or decrease by in being present or not.

Simply putting it a immediate danger bare wires etc. is code C1.
An danger which could exist if something else fails is code C2.
Something which has previously been considered safe but is now not permitted C3. i.e. Old Code 4.

But really we can only go back to British Standards so to me if BS7671 at some time allowed then code C3. Clearly we can't go back to 1st edition there has to be a limit as indicated with the ELCB-v.

So back to house in question. Clearly lack of paperwork. But after I found out the old BS7671:2001 I can't see anything which has been reported that would attract anything more than a C3.

To my mind a C3 says in real terms it's all OK now, but if you want to do work on the electrics there will be some updating required, so adding one extra socket could become expensive.

So if I was not an electrician then I would ask some one who is to look quickly around the house. (Not a full inspection) and point out anything which will be C1 or C2 you not really worried about C3.
Any C1 items need fixing but C2 you need to consider if they really need doing. A junction box in loft with the outer sheave not in the box I would not worry about. Lack of ELCB-c with a TT supply I would worry about. And lack of labels I would not worry about.

The main problems are lack of paperwork and uncertain under floor heating as to is suitable for bathroom use. If it were me I would disconnect the supply to underfloor heating and tape up wires. Job done. Unless you have made a big thing about it can't see problem. It went faulty so was disconnected simple.