Browse Forums Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1 Oct 31, 2010 1:53 pm Hi, Has anyone had any experience buying a house that has had illegal wiring? The house I purchased was renovated 4 years ago, with a new extention added - ironically the old portion of the house was fine, the issue is with the addition! According the electrican the wiring was SO bad he doubts a qualified person undertook it i.e. issues included using the earth wire as power wire etc ... To complicate matters the previous owners are ignoring calls, the builder has moved to another state and the electrician that issued the COE for main switch and some other parts was not licensed to do so ... While I did have a building inspection prior to buying the house none of this was uncovered ... I guess my question is am I liable for the full cost of repairs or am I likely to be able to recover some of the cost of rectifying the issue from someone else? We are only talking a couple of grand here so it is more the principle, I dont appreciate the safety of my family being put at risk. Thanks Re: House purchased that has illegal wiring 2Oct 31, 2010 2:12 pm -Get the problem fixed ASAP. Personal safety is number one. -Report the person who issued the COE to the licencing board. May as well hang someout to dry as some sort of moral victory. Might have no chance of financial recompense on this as it appears that all parties concerned have run for the hills, sad to say you may have to wear the cost of this but if you wait months for money and someone gets hurt in the meantime, it may be you who wears any claims for injury as you knew it was dangerous and didn't take steps to rectify it as soon as it was noticed. I know its not the best situation to be in but do you know the depth of the problem-is it a couple if things wrong or is it the whole lot require replacing? Re: House purchased that has illegal wiring 3Oct 31, 2010 2:17 pm Everything E1109 says is valid. It would be remiss of you to NOT contact the relevent authority, here in Vic (you don't say where you are from, unfortunately) it is Energy Safe. Good luck. Geoff - Decophile. Re: House purchased that has illegal wiring 4Oct 31, 2010 2:29 pm Are these problems obvious, such as, were they identified in the roof space or did gyprock need to be removed? Get a second opinion, maybe the sparky you are currently dealing with needs the work. Contact the business who undertook the building inspection.(refer to my first question) Re: House purchased that has illegal wiring 5Oct 31, 2010 6:50 pm Thanks for the advice everyone - Yea I have already remedied the most serious of the issues (insulation covering down lights, cluster of wires leading to each downlight etc) ... Interestingly I immediately contacted the Office of Technical Registrar (I am in Adelaide) to report the electrician that incorrectly signed off on the the COC and they couldn't of cared less ... They took their details and said there was nothing they could really do since it was 4 years ago and the electrician would claim that the work was done after them. Evediently not being certified to sign a COC in the first instance is not that big of a deal! I have thought of the building inspection guy, since he should have atleast notified me that the down lights were covered by insulation - but apparently that is a bit hard since he is not an electrician ... Oh well lesson learned - get an electrian involved in the inspection in the first instance ... Cheersw Re: House purchased that has illegal wiring 6Nov 03, 2010 1:53 am claylang I have thought of the building inspection guy, since he should have atleast notified me that the down lights were covered by insulation - but apparently that is a bit hard since he is not an electrician ... Oh well lesson learned - get an electrian involved in the inspection in the first instance ... Cheersw If he is a building inspector then he should be able to pick up obvious things like insulation covering the light. Don't need to be a sparkie to see that, no other obvious wiring faults. I work with owner, he/she is my man on the ground and I instruct them when to visit the site and take photos and I have other tools in the bag. 4 15265 4 14277 Thank you so much. This has been very helpful. We definitely wish to settle and get these people out of our life. They are trying to charge us interest on late… 7 14262 |