We're buying a house privately because we know the current owners well
and there's no need to employ an estate agent.

We've had a RICS Level 2 survey done and it hasn't flagged up much
apart from the lack of any current Electrical Installation Condition
Report and also the equivalent paperwork for the boiler/gas
installation.

We've never bought a house before so whilst this may seem to be a
stupid question, who actually pays for these tests/inspections - us as
the buyers or them as the vendors?

Am I right in thinking that we just pass on the surveyors report to our
solicitor and they contact the vendor's solicitor and ask them to have
it done at their expense or do we stand the cost?

On 11/12/2022 18:16, Andy Smith wrote:
> We're buying a house privately because we know the current owners well
> and there's no need to employ an estate agent.
>
> We've had a RICS Level 2 survey done and it hasn't flagged up much apart
> from the lack of any current Electrical Installation Condition Report
> and also the equivalent paperwork for the boiler/gas installation.
>
> We've never bought a house before so whilst this may seem to be a stupid
> question, who actually pays for these tests/inspections - us as the
> buyers or them as the vendors?
>
> Am I right in thinking that we just pass on the surveyors report to our
> solicitor and they contact the vendor's solicitor and ask them to have
> it done at their expense or do we stand the cost?

There is no legal requirement to provide an EICR or Gas Safe
certificates when selling a house, so if you want one its up to you to pay.

If the vendor is keen to sell and there is no one else wanting to buy
then they may be persuaded to provide one. One reason to use an estate
agent as a vendor is that they can in still competition among the buyers
and drive the price up..

Of course if they obtain it, you have no contract with the provider so I
don't believe that they have any liability to you should it be
incomplete...

.... and if you obtain them the provider will hide behind difficulties of
obtaining access to hidden spaces to carry out inspections....

Do you know how old the boiler is? Has it been serviced regularly?
When the house was last rewired? What work has been done since Part-P
was introduced? Are there any certificates of work?

Dave

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote:
> There is no legal requirement to provide an EICR or Gas Safe
> certificates when selling a house, so if you want one its up to you to pay.
> obtaining access to hidden spaces to carry out inspections....
>
Basically the EICR and the gas safety cert are just paper trails for some
basic checks. There is no requirement for the vendor to have them, and
there is no requirement for the vendor to stump up the cost. The costs of
them are not great in the grand scheme of things: ~£200 for the EICR[*] and
~£100 for the gas cert.

Whether you want to have them done depends on the condition of the property
and how much you think there might be lurking.

Most EICR issues are relatively small fixes; the main things might be
needing a rewire (thousands) or a new consumer unit (mid hundreds; although
a consumer unit may be outdated and not to modern standards it's not
necessarily unsafe and need not be replaced).

For gas, as long as the boiler isn't actively condemned as in need of
replacement then any issues are likely to be cheap to fix (low hundreds).

> Do you know how old the boiler is? Has it been serviced regularly?
> When the house was last rewired? What work has been done since Part-P
> was introduced? Are there any certificates of work?

At the end of the day, you may well be able to judge the condition of the
property as to how well looked after it's been. (although beware places
that have been 'builderified' with a new coat of white paint...)

Theo

[*] There are certain fly-by-night EICR outfits who offer to do them for
cheap, for landlords who need an EICR to let a property and don't care as
long as it passes. Steer clear of these, because you want somebody to do an
actual thorough inspection, not a drive-by.

There's another type of EICR inspector who comes up with lots of spurious
faults and charges a pretty penny to fix them. If faults are found, get
somebody else to remedy them.

On Sunday, 11 December 2022 at 18:16:43 UTC, Andy Smith wrote:
> We're buying a house privately because we know the current owners well
> and there's no need to employ an estate agent.
>
> We've had a RICS Level 2 survey done and it hasn't flagged up much
> apart from the lack of any current Electrical Installation Condition
> Report and also the equivalent paperwork for the boiler/gas
> installation.
>
> We've never bought a house before so whilst this may seem to be a
> stupid question, who actually pays for these tests/inspections - us as
> the buyers or them as the vendors?
>
> Am I right in thinking that we just pass on the surveyors report to our
> solicitor and they contact the vendor's solicitor and ask them to have
> it done at their expense or do we stand the cost?

If you want them done you pay. How useful they'll be is very variable.

Andy Smith wrote :
> We're buying a house privately because we know the current owners well and
> there's no need to employ an estate agent.
>
> We've had a RICS Level 2 survey done and it hasn't flagged up much apart from
> the lack of any current Electrical Installation Condition Report and also the
> equivalent paperwork for the boiler/gas installation.
>
> We've never bought a house before so whilst this may seem to be a stupid
> question, who actually pays for these tests/inspections - us as the buyers or
> them as the vendors?
>
> Am I right in thinking that we just pass on the surveyors report to our
> solicitor and they contact the vendor's solicitor and ask them to have it
> done at their expense or do we stand the cost?

Thanks folks, much appreciated.