Electrics - oops!

[jdsnape]

We recently purchased a thatched house in Suffolk. During the process we were shown the electrical inspection for the house which was done when they rewired in 2006. It was a bit out of date (they'd not realised they needed to keep it up to date for the thatch insurance!) but it looked like it would only need some relatively minor stuff to bring it up to the latest regulations. Because of this, and wanting to get on with the process, I didn't get a pre-purchase electrical survey done.

I had the inspection carried out for our insurers yesterday, and quickly realised that the original survey covered the house but not the garage or outbuilding (glorified shed, but it has our boiler and heating in it). It turns out that the installation in that part is...interesting...including an immersion wired on a lighting circuit that arcs when it's touched

So now I have a bill for about £6k all in to fit new consumer units and re-wire the heating! While we would have bought the house regardless, I missed an opportunity to try and recoup some of the cost for the electrics as the house was presented as 'fully rewired', although the vendors would probably have refused to budge as they had quite a bit of interest.

A slightly expensive lesson - not looking for recommendations, just having a rant! <rant over>

 

[Cubist]

Sorry to hear you got caught out. Sadly too few know that a EICR is a must as far the insurers of thatched home are concerned. Your homes previous owner either did not bother with insurance at all or neglected to understand that their insurer will have voided their cover automatically. Worse, I suspect, your prospective insurers will be demanding that all work and an 'acceptable' certification report is provided within 30 days or they will apply some rather draconian restrictions until you can produce one.

I emphasise 'acceptable' as many insurers insist that a Satisfactory certification alone is not sufficient for their underwriters - many also insist that there are no CI, C2 and in some cases C3 codes reported in the final certificate. More sorry still to tell you that there may be more pain to come - best that you talk to your insurer and get some specific and binding advice on this point.

Equally sadly, too few buyers realise that they must demand a copy of the current certification during the sales process and/or insist that the seller provides one with no observations/endorsements recorded.

 

[jdsnape]

Thanks for the reply! Yes, I was aware that a EICR would be required, and had gone over the historical installation report as provided with an electrician and got their advice that some work would need to be done (I was expecting to potentially need to replace some of the RCDs as they were the wrong type, and potentially replace some lighting). If I had got the electrician to just check the house that is indeed what we would have done, but when we got to the outbuildings it was a different story.

We are planning on fixing all the C2s found - and most of the C3s will go with the replacement of the consumer units. There will be one C3 left which is a cable buried from the house to the outbuilding used to control the heating which, while it was tested as safe, has an unknown level of protection as it just emerges from the floor at both ends. I will have to have a fight over that if they insist on it as replacing it would either involve listed consent to put new holes in/under the house (and significant expense!) or some kind of RF link which I'm not confident would be reliable.

 

[Cubist]

How far away is the outbuilding concerned? Ours, with the CU in it is around 50 meters away and separated from the main house by a bridleway. I ask as it's possible to lay a new cable using a mole which is not at all disruptive. However, provided that the existing cable from the primary CU is suitably armoured and buried to an appropriate depth I do not understand why the inspector would assign a C3 (Improvement Recommended) to that.

A couple of years back I was caught out with a change of policy by my insurers who suddenly demanded that C3s had to be cleared as well - I ended up with another bill for an amended certificate and the remedial work involved. Best talk to yours just in case.

 

[RBailey]

insurer will have voided their cover automatically.

Not strictly true (anymore).

Such clauses are referred to as insurance warrantees. The insured must maintain and comply with the clause, and failure to maintain a warranty could void a policy.

The warranty terms used to be absolute, i.e. if you did not have an EICR and the house flooded, then the policy would not pay out.
However, the law changed in the 2015 insurance act so for a claim to be deigned the breached warranty must be related to the cause.
Electrical fire and no EICR = Out of luck
Flooding and no EICR = probable payout

There are some nuances around the insurer being able to contract so all warrantees are still to be absolute but that doesn't apply in retail insurance.

(p.s. Not a lawyer, I just do a lot of insurance related stuff at work.)

Sorry about the "surprise" rewire.

Cheers,
Richard B.