Why would you want a home buyer's electrical report?

Why would you want a home buyer's electrical report to check the electrics of a property you are considering purchasing?

We can think of 3 good reasons:

• Make sure your new house is safe for you and your family.
• An average re-wire for a 3 bed semi is approx £3,200+
• You can use the electrical survey as a bargaining chip to reduce your purchase price.

What do you get for your money?

Most of the time when buying a home, purchasers are left wondering what quality information they actually got from the house buying process and whether half of it was relevant to them at all.

A home buyer's electrical report is relevant to you. It will determine how safe your home is and how much the electrical installation may cost you in the future. Also it is a good time to check out rough costs of any upgrades you were thinking about after moving in and whether they would be possible, or if there are alternatives.

Why doesn't the mortgage surveyor pick up any of the problems we might find? They might spot the easy to spot problems (which is when they ask for a periodic inspection report or electrical survey) but they are only there to perform an over view of the whole property. They are not Qualified Electrical Engineers who are trained to perform electrical surveys.

What are the general conditions of an electrical installations?

If the house is under 10 years old and hasn't been touched by DIY you may be lucky. The installation will not be up to current standards but is probably quite serviceable. If you are buying a house that has been "recently refurbished", looking dated, has been previously rented out. We would highly recommend a home buyer's electrical report as it is quite frightening what we might find. Many developers, landlords and householders save money on things they can not see. Unfortunately most electrics are hidden.

A survey carried out showed that 78% of house owners would tamper with their electrical installation but only 8% would tamper with their gas installation. However 21% of all house fires and 3872 deaths and injuries are caused by faulty electrics every year. With these statistics in mind if your seller looks keen on DIY get us in.

What sort of things do we find?

• No earth cables anywhere in the installation
• Cabling that has been eaten away by animals and rodents
• Circuits that are burned out due to over loading
• Fuses are replaced by nails or bits of metal
• Showers that have been installed using cables designed for sockets or lights
• Sockets and lights unsafely connected
• Use of inside lights and sockets outside
• Loose connections that have burned away cable insulation or burned through the fuse box or trip switch
• 1950's fuseboards with no earth connection and incorrect fuses installed

Terms & Conditions

We guarantee that any customer making a request for a House Buyers report ( Periodic Inspection ) will not pay any more than £130  for the report, as long as they request is made via the website advert. Please note however that this is up to and including a 4 bedroom property, and that the property is a domestic dwelling and not either a nursing home or non-domestic dwelling. In addition the property shall not be a domestic dwelling with swimming pools, hot tubs and more than 3 living rooms / reception rooms.