re wireing

[saggybucket]

we are in the middle of buying a victorian house on the first viewing we noticed that it had an old electric consumer box we had an electrician have a look at it he said it needs updateing but the vendors and thair estate agents say its ok and does not need doing we have asked the vendors to upgrade it because we dont want to buy it with an old box will it be safe or will we have to replace it if we ever sale it. any advice please.

[theshedman]

Hi saggybucket, I don't think it they have to have it changed to be able to sell the house, but if you are not happy with the consumer box then have it changed when you move in. I know I would feel safer with a new consumer box that trips when there is a problem. Did your Electrician look at the wiring in the rest of the house while he was there. If that is old too then it could be expensive to have it all rewired.

[madmaggot]

They are not obliged to have this done to sell the house but in today's market it is worth getting a quote for the work and either ask them to agree to reduce the price by that amount or a percentage of it.

[Twenty20]

Unless the whole house requires rewiring then just changing the consumer box would be a very minimal cost considering the whole cost of buying a house. It might be one of a number of things you could use to get the price down however, but on its own its hardly worth bothering about. Maybe if you committed to the sale then the vendor would agree to change the box before you moved n.