Post Property Transfer Problems

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mazoxx

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Hi All,

I bought a property earlier this year and I have problems with the Electrical Compliance Certificate (ECC) as the purchased property had/has no compliant Electrical Installations. The Seller has not yet provided me with a valid Electrical Fence Compliance Certificate (EFCC) (This was a requirement in the OTP).

After the property was transfer, the Electrician that supplied the ECC came and fixed some of the Electrical faults but there is still some outstanding faults.

During the purchase process we discovered that there were some items missing from the approved plans and an addendum added to the Sales Offer to Purchase to withhold a portion of the Sales proceeds until the approved plans were supplied. I have been notified that the updated plans have been approved.

Can I request the Transferring Attorney to withhold the funds until the Electrical issues are sorted even if the money was with held for a different reason.

If I accept the approved plans there is a chance that I will never get any money to fix the faulty installation or get the EFCC. How do I stop the Attorney from releasing this funds until the stated issues are resolved. Can the financing bank help?.

What will be my best option now?

Thanx in advance.
 
You inform the attorney and the seller that should an ecc not be supplied prior to the final funds being released you will get an electrician to sort out the problems and you will sue them in the small claims court for the cost of the work.
 
The Electrician that supplied the ECC has signed off on the house which means there shouldn't be any outstanding electical faults. You need to contact him and tell him to sort out the remaining issues, else report him to the authorities (ECSA?) or at least threaten to do so.

You also need to call and the transfer attorneys and ask how the property was transferred if not all the conditions of the OTP were met? Hopefully they will assist with getting the ECC and EFCC sorted out pronto. If the transfer attorneys are not willing to assist or take any responsibility you'll probably need to get your own attorney involved... but that's really a last resort. I'd much rather advise picking up the phone and applying some pressure on the people who "should" be responsible for this stuff.

I'm not a lawyer but speaking from personal experience (see http://goo.gl/GqImSj) you're not really in a good position and your best option is to use your savvy skills of negotiation.
 
How long ago was the property transferred ? The seller and the electrician who are still responsible for the compliance certificate and you can take them to the respective panels or boards etc. (I complained about an electrical problem 14 years ago after I moved in and the electrician had to come out and sort out the problem at his own cost).

There were some other issues with the property which had not been solved yet, lucky we were still on time to stop the attorney from transferring the money. (this was about a week after the transfer took place, so I guess it depends how fast the attorneys are)

Maybe the attorney was a bit on our side as well (although the seller appointed him) as the seller was giving us grieve about our occupation date. (we agreed on a certain date that we could move in, and about a week before the time he indicated we could not move unless we paid 2000 a day (this was 14 years ago). For some reason the attorneys speeded up the transfer (the house was transfered a few days before we planned to move in. We had to kick him out in the end. (so actually he had to pay us 2000 a day) He never fixed the things he should have according to the contract, so we just got contractors in and it was just taken of from his moneys (they kept back 20%). In the end his hard ass attitude cost him about 10% of the sale price.
 
The other thing though, is at some point you have to look at the outstanding issues and decide how big they are and whether they are worth fighting over or just getting someone in to fix them yourself (if it doesn't cost too much)...

When I moved in, I had the electricity and water connected and when I turned on the geyser it started spewing out the overflow pipe as if it had burst.. was going to have a frothy but had a mate who was a plumber pop around and have a look.. he told me it was just the 2 vacuum breakers that had gone... cost me R450 to replace including labour... I could have got the seller to pay for that since it was a material defect that they had hidden from me, but it just wasn't worth the effort.
 
mazoxx said:
Hi All,

I bought a property earlier this year and I have problems with the Electrical Compliance Certificate (ECC) as the purchased property had/has no compliant Electrical Installations. The Seller has not yet provided me with a valid Electrical Fence Compliance Certificate (EFCC) (This was a requirement in the OTP).

After the property was transfer, the Electrician that supplied the ECC came and fixed some of the Electrical faults but there is still some outstanding faults.

During the purchase process we discovered that there were some items missing from the approved plans and an addendum added to the Sales Offer to Purchase to withhold a portion of the Sales proceeds until the approved plans were supplied. I have been notified that the updated plans have been approved.

Can I request the Transferring Attorney to withhold the funds until the Electrical issues are sorted even if the money was with held for a different reason.

If I accept the approved plans there is a chance that I will never get any money to fix the faulty installation or get the EFCC. How do I stop the Attorney from releasing this funds until the stated issues are resolved. Can the financing bank help?.

What will be my best option now?

Thanx in advance.
Click to expand...

Get the attorney to write a letter. Transfer should not have taken place without the problems being sorted out. You have grounds here to withhold the funds. Remember, if you intend to ever sell the property, you will be liable in any case for the repairs, which could total thousands, let alone any wriring related insurance claims, as insurance can and probably will ask for the COC. Lastly, you as the title holder have to keep the original COC on site, as municipal bylaws allow for any inspector to arrive and check if you have a valid COC.
 
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