Electrical survey required for house sale?

[djc]

Is that the legal wording or is it a dumbed down web site interpretation.

[Dave Liquorice]

I can see that problem as they are treating the "sale" as a normal conveyance but this isn't it's an asset swap. Agree on values, swap the ownership details on the Land Registry and transfer a balance (if any) in the appropriate direction. Mortgage companies might not like it and will want valuation surveys but at the end of the day there is still an asset protecting the loan.

That is what I was thinking. If the Will was drawn up correctly there shouldn't be any problems.

I think you need to find another solicitor that doesn't want to treat the process as two "house sales" just an asset swap. When my sister and I "sold" our 1/3 shares in my late fathers house to our other sister we just used one solicitor and didn't bother with the bureaucracy(*) that surrounds an ordinary house sale.

(*) The only thing I can think of that *has* to be done is changing the names on the Land Registry and thinking of a figure to give them for the value, which might lead to avoiding/reducing Stamp Duty.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Nothing to do with the EU. It just required that governments have an estimate of the efficiency of their housing stock, something which could have been done simply with a bit of random sampling. It was the UK government which gold plated it, turning it into a job creation scheme for the unemployed, funded by a tax on house sales. Of course the data is too inaccurate to be of any actual use, because the quality of the assessors who came forward for training was a long way below what was actually required, and the exams had to be dumbed down.

[Bill Taylor]

I don't know, but the gov.uk sites are usually reliable. I did try to find a more definitive source, but my appetite for searching legislation and then interpreting it is very small.

[Robin]

I was never fully up to speed on the 2002 EU Directive but my recollection was that it mandated an EPC and I find on checking that Article 7* starts with:

"1. Member States shall ensure that, when buildings are constructed, sold or rented out, an energy performance certificate is made available to the owner or by the owner to the prospective buyer or tenant, as the case might be. The validity of the certificate shall not exceed 10 years.

Certification for apartments or units designed for separate use in blocks may be based:

- on a common certification of the whole building for blocks with a common heating system, or

- on the assessment of another representative apartment in the same block."

I have no doubt you are right to point to scope for gold plating in the implementation as the Directive leaves Member States to decide the methodology. But that methodology had to be based on a framework set out in the Annex to the Duirective which is fairly detailed. Perhaps readers with overseas property could help on what's required there?

*'s also a 2010 Directive which expands the requirements but I've not been there.

[Bill Taylor]

And, as it's a simple transaction with no contentious issues, sack the solicitors and do it yourself. The Land registry site is very clear, has all the forms available for download and the staff are very helpful. (After all, the original intention of the Land Registry was to make property transfers simple and remove lawyers from the process.)

If the house was held as a beneficial joint tenancy, ownership will transfer to the surviving partner automatically; a will is irrelevant. The LR will need to see the death certificate on transfer though.

Solicitors have just managed to make the sale of my parents house fall through after 4 months of serial incompetence, by trying to insist on first registration of the property before transfer. A completely unneccesary step, but one that would have got them an extra £500 in fees.

The first registration has now been done by us. It's a very simple process which took about half an hour to fill in the forms. They were at the Land Registry less than 24 hours after they were recovered from the solicitor and given a brief examination by a very helpful person who confirmed my views that the issues that the solicitors were raising as problems were complete non-issues.

[AlanD]

Thanks, booked with NationwideEPC.

[Peter Crosland]

Solicitors are no longer allowed to act for both parties.

[The Other Mike]

Doesn't voluntary registration involve the same* scale of fees that rise according to the value of the property (not the value of a transaction) so that registering a house that hasn't existed on the register can cost many hundreds of pounds whereas doing nothing (other than keeping the deeds secure) and letting it get registered when it needs to be, with the costs falling on the purchaser, make a far better solution?

• They offer somthing like 75 quid discount iirc for voluntary registration.

[ARW]

About the only time a VIR is of any use is when you have a valid EICR and there is a change of tenant.

[Andy Dingley]

Not IMHE. We bought in late 2008, without the house having been marketed. We still needed to pay for an EPC, but not a HIP. (The issue of who paid is another matter...).

As the house is 125 years old, the EPC gave it a uniform zilch rating for everything. Which was no surprise to anyone. Total waste of time and money.

[Dave Liquorice]

But this is an "asset swap" not a full marketed house conveyance sale between complete strangers. It's a mostly paperwork excercise and the only reason to have a solictor involved is to (hopefully!) make sure the legal paperwork is done correctly. It's not rocket science but silly mistakes can be very expensive further down the line.