OT: Is it worth getting boiler serviced before house sale?

Ask yourself, if you were buying, how much difference would a piece of paper saying when the boiler was serviced make to the house you had otherwise set your heart on. Or the "birth certificate" for the double glasing etc. Then you have your answer.

Depends on the target market and how hard it is to sell in your area.

First time buyers (if there still are any) may be reassured; more experienc ed buyers may know that a service a few months ago means very little with a 10 year old boiler.

Unless the house is a rock-bottom-priced tip or somewhere down south where anything will sell within 24 hours it probably makes sense to do as many sm all jobs as possible to make it presentable and attractive to buyers. I thi nk I'd be inclined to get it serviced as it fends off awkward enquiries fro m potential buyers.

Owain

I have sold many house within various price brackets in the last 15 years.

In my experience you will get a substantial return on the £70-odd the service will cost you.

It adds a hint that you are generally honest and responsible.

Spend the money on visible tarting up round the place. Tidy up garden, wash windows, bit of decorating. Power wash driveway/roof tiles. Clean exterior uPVC (windows, doors, gutters, cladding).

Remember kerb appeal.

The conveyancing solicitors will probably ask for any evidence of servicing, but are unlikely to care if there is none.

They will also want confirmation that building regs registration of the boiler install is present. If they can't find that they will probably ask you to purchase a (pointless) insurance to cover against any enforcement action from LABC (which can't happen more than 2 years after the event anyway). Same goes for replacement windows and all the other nonsense.

I can see that it might influence some people but the link with honesty and being responsible is a bit of a stretch. On the older "dumb" boilers I always did my own checks and servicing but have been told by many "experts" that the only checks needed on a working modern boiler is that the seals are OK, to remove crud from the combustion area (there never is any) and (ideally) to check the exhaust gas.

I installed the boiler and the Megaflo myself (as part of a larger project) but then got someone with the appropriate approvals to inspect and sign-off the installation, so that's all OK. I paid for servicing for the first few years (because of the warranty) but have always done my own since then, hence the question.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@thanks.com writes

Their solicitor will most probably ask so you may as well get it done otherwise you are asking the purchaser to risk an expensive replacement and they will want to negate that risk by trying to reduce the price.

Agree on the 'making presentable' but boiler servicing isn't presentation. Nobody will notice when they look at the property nor will they ask before putting in an offer.

They may not notice it when viewing, but it will definitely score you a few brownie points if you remember to mention it when showing the potential buyers around the room where it is located. It simply gives them the impression that the house and the fixtures and fittings, even those that are not obvious, are/were maintained properly. Nobody likes a nasty and expensive surprise on the day they visit the house for the first time after getting the keys.

In Scotland, on the other hand, it is standard practice for the buyers' solicitor to include a clause in the contract that states that the seller guarantees all electrical and/or gas appliances that are included in the sale for a period of 7-14 days. In that case a service is less important.

The gas boiler in one of the properties that I flipped a few years ago was in a pretty bad shape - not obvious unless you took the cover off and knew what to look for. My heating engineer had a look at it within days of exchanging contracts, and the sellers had to pay for a new boiler to be installed...

Conveyancers nowadays have a standard question along the lines of 'does the heating system work' which should be answered honestly.

This is generally a more effective question than 'when was it last serviced ' as the latter could still hide a non-working boiler (i.e. worked when ser viced only). I've sold a few and was only asked once for a cert which I sug gested they pay for and get, which they did before the sale.

So save your money.

It may be worth paying for a professional service so you can answer the question 'and it was serviced by XYZ Ltd last week' rather than '...and I've always serviced it myself'. In the latter case the buyers have no way to assess your professional competence and might be put off buying a house where the gas system has been DIY serviced because there might be hidden (dangerous) surprises.

Theo

My neighbour moved his own gas meter !.

He also dug up the councils pavement and dropped his own kerb, without bothering about any permissions. A really nasty piece of s*it who you wouldn't want to be near.

The original gas meter location was inside the garage which was semi-attached to my garage with one common roof, between the two houses but not attached to either house. He demolished his garage (making mine damp in the process because his new ground level was above the DPC of the garage party wall).

The 3/4 inch screwed iron that was jointed to BG's yellow plastic stuff used to be inside 4 inch glazed drainage pipes to isolate it from contact with aggressive soil. That was all smashed and removed and the whole lot manually shifted one metre towards his house where it became attached to his new garage inside wall (previously his house external wall). The 3/4 iron stuff is now buried under the dpc of the new garage in direct contact with the soil and the compression joint between BG plastic and BG-owned 3/4 inch iron is also buried under his garage because the new garage is 2 metres further forward than the old one.

Which is what happened when the vendor of the house I'm now in didn't have any service history on the boiler. We didn't want to be walking into a house in mid-autumn only to go through the hoops of having to install a new boiler.

And no one tipped off the council?

Phone call to National Grid (it's them that own the pipes, not BG now)?

Are you saying a pro serviced system is guaranteed *not* to have 'hidden (dangerous) surprises'?

I'd say anyone buying a new to them house would do best to have such things inspected by their own expert.

Reminds me of this garage demolition I walked past on the way to the dentist some years ago, which was complete by the time I came back again, except for the gas meter...

They were actually waiting for Transco to come and disconnect it when I took the picture.

Lovely, can we put it on wiki?

NT