Removing lights in house sale

[DumbBlonde5]

Hello

We are selling our house and want to take 3 of the ceiling lights with us. We indicated this in the fixtures and fittings form. We know we have to replace them with a ceiling rose etc

The sellers are now asking if we will have a qualified electrician remove these. Legally can they force us to do this? Do new regs mean only electricians can change celing lights? My husband put them up and was going to take them down.

Many thanks

 

[sparkybird]

No you don't need a qualified sparks to do this work.

Also as the plastic pendants are plastic they don't require an earth so you don't even need to test for this. When new lights are put up an electrician should test for earth though - but this is the purchasers problem!

 

[DumbBlonde5]

Thank you!! I think the buyers are trying to intimidate us into leaving them. Not going to work though

 

[sparkwright]

I would like to think though that whoever replaces the lights for roses knows what he or she is doing.

I recall visiting a house after the exact circumstances you have described occurred.

They wired the mass of wires to the base of the rose - but upside down!

The terminals of the rose were virtually touching the ceiling, and the pendant flex was passed through the cable entry of the rose base.

Somehow the ceiling rose cover did actually screw onto the upside down base.

If you must fit these roses, make sure you note where every wire goes first. And make sure the cable ends are sound, not on the verge of breaking off. And make sure all the terminal screws are tight, even the ones that the manufacturer would have connected.

It does seem unfair that a new buyer can't expect a professional to fit these, and has to worry if it's been done correctly, but then again I suppose the rest of the house could have been tampered with.

If you like, send us pictures of your work, if nothing else for us to pick holes in it (!).

 

[SimonH2]

Seems to me that it would be much simpler all round to replace the lights before putting the house on the market - avoids this sort of issue

 

[neallew]

I hope you do better than the seller of my current house. I knew she was taking lights and reminded her of her legal responsibility to leave me with a working light pendant on moving out. I also offered to do it for her if needed as she was unable to do them herself ( i.e. no idea how) So I turn up and find pendants dangling from choc blocks no ceiling roses... great. So I end up doing them myself anyway....

 

[SimonH2]

Which gives you grounds for having some of your purchase price back. If you do nothing then she has no incentive to not do the same thing next time.