The Dangers of Buying or Selling a Home without an Electrical Inspection

Are you buying or selling a home?

Does it come with the necessary Electrical Certificates? (Installation Certificates OR Electrical Condition Report)?

If not then read on to find out why this might cause problems with your selling or buying process.

If in any doubt, I have a free 5 point guide here. This helps you to identify if an Inspection is needed.

Buying a Home

When buying you need to know if it is safe.

But have you considered what not knowing might mean?

Many people think that this just means expense to put things right. Well, ok, that may be true. Although not every job or repair is expensive. Some are more cosmetic, as opposed to needing a complete rewire. In fact many things can be put right without too much expense.

But here’s the thing!

If you aren’t aware of the condition of the wiring in your new home, it’s not just safety. It’s not just expense. But it could also be a major hassle in future. For that ignored wiring can and will show up in many forms. From burning out of loose connections or worn parts. To flickering or even power loss. Did you know that flickering can sometimes means overheating? Loose connections also cause overheating.

But that’s not all!

When you move on to your new home, you crack on and start painting and making good. You start adding your touches to “make your mark”. And that’s all great too. Eventually it’s all done a looking great.

But that wiring that you did’t get checked (and that didn’t come certified) is playing up worse than ever.

Eventually (maybe many months later) you get someone round to check it out. To your surprise there are some issues that have to be put right. Thankfully you aren’t in a bad position. Most things are fine. But (for arguments sake) you find that the Downstairs sockets need rewiring. This is the one that a Kitchen fitter altered a few years back, and never certified.

The work gets done properly now, but all that nice decorating has to get channeled out to be able to run the new cables. But fortunately in this case it was just one circuit and only 4 rooms. Phew!

But what if this had been detected at the point you bought the property?

If an Electrical Inspection had been carried out then, you could have:

• Had it Inspected before moving in, so that you were armed with the information you need
• Haggled the price of sale if any work was needed (or asked the seller to have it done)
• Moved in with the knowledge that you can carry out decorating, without any disruption (or re-decorating) down the line

So can you see how valuable an Electrical Inspection would be?

I have written a  5 – Step Guide to help determine if a property needs an Electrical Inspection or not.

You can get download this FREE guide here.

Selling a Home

When it comes to selling, ok you are not concerned with cost or safety. Not as much as the buyer anyway. As you are leaving it behind for them to take ok, right?

Obviously you don’t want to leave it in a bad state. And if that is not the case then great. That’s good.

However when it comes to getting your asking price, supplying certificates can make a difference.

Nobody wants to move into a house if they have any doubts about the state of the wiring.

And if they do have doubts, they would want to know that it is not going to be an expensive job to put right.

So if you spot anything that causes concern, then so will they!

Remember a buyer is likely to be critical and looking for issues as they look around.

So if you have the paperwork for your installation work (and that means ALL of it, including later work that was carried out). Then that’s great.

But if there is anything missing, or you have nothing at all, then imagine how much easier it would be if you had something to provide. The way to provide certificates when you have no Electrical Installation Certificate, is to provide an Electrical Instalation Report instead.

If you are unsure if you need one or not, then check out our guide.

 

And in the meantime, if you know of anyone else that is in the process of moving, then send them the link to this blog too. Contact me for any further questions.