Buying a Home? Make Sure You Get the Condition of the Boiler Checked Before You Exchange Contracts

 

Buying your first home or your next home is an exciting prospect but can also be very stressful one. One way you can avoid unnecessary stress is the get the boiler in the house you are buying independently checked by a Gas Safe engineer if it is a gas boiler or by OFTEC registered engineer if it is an oil boiler.

 

 

It is always easy to get carried along by the cosmetics of a prospective new home or by the imagining of improvements once you move in - perhaps visualising a new Smallbone kitchen or adding conservatory for long hot summer days.

 

What you will immediately need the moment you move in is a working boiler - for both hot water and heating from day one. It sounds obvious but you will be amazed by the number of new home buyers who overlook this when buying a house and only find out once they have moved in that the boiler is beyond economic repair or is in fact dangerous and to replace it they need to find between £3000 and £6000 - possibly more depending of the size of the property. Bang goes those new kitchen plans, or that new conservatory.

 

And this is just for a standard gas boiler. If you are buying a home with an oil boiler you will also need to have the oil storage tank and pipework checked. It is imperative that the tank is checked to make sure it is free from leaks before having it filled with oil. Heating oil can cause serious problems if it gets into the environment. And it is not just about loosing valuable oil, the compulsory environmental clean up costs can be large and are not always covered by your household insurance.

 

With oil heating, if the boiler is beyond economic repair or is dangerous then you could be looking at a bill of between £4500 to £5500 to replace it - possibly more depending of the size of the property. And if the tank has leaks or is in a dangerous condition, replacing it with a modern bunded tank can cost around £3500.

 

1. Before putting an offer in, arrange for a Pre-Purchase Inspection of the boiler (plus the oil storage tank if the boiler is oil-fired). This must be carried out by a Gas Safe engineer if gas or LPG, and in the case of oil it is strongly recommended that this is carried out by an OFTEC-registered engineer.
2. If the Pre-Purchase Inspection report says all is well, then you can consider proceeding to putting in an offer to the vendors agent/solicitors. If the Pre-Purchase Inspection report flags up issues with the boiler and/or tank, then immediately bring these to the attention of the vendor via their agent/solicitors.