Five final questions before taking the keys

It’s an exciting moment when you finalise the details of your property purchase and the previous owners hand you the keys to your new house. Your mind will be on a million things. You need to get ready for the arrival of the removalist, the fridge has to be stocked with food and the kitchen drawers and shelves need to be filled. All of these things are important, but before you accept the keys and get to work, take a minute to ask a few final questions.

Five essential questions

When an emergency arises, you won’t have the luxury of time to go looking for the answers you need immediately; when you’re working around the house, you might wish you had asked a few simple questions before you started. While you have the chance, ask the seller these five essential questions.

1. Where is the electricity meter? Electricity meters often ‘hide in plain sight’, so if the power goes out in the middle of the night, you don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark looking for the meter. Ask the owners where the meter is and to show it to you.
2. Where is the water mains stopcock? If a pipe bursts, you want to be able to turn off the water at the mains immediately. It’s a simple question that could save you a lot of grief (and money).
3. Where can I turn off the gas? If you have gas appliances and something goes wrong, the first thing you need to do is shut off the gas at its point of entry. Have the old owners show you where and how to turn the gas off.
4. Ask them for the location of buried pipes around the house. If you don’t know where a sewerage pipe is, for instance, you won’t be the first homeowner to break a clay or PVC pipe when you’re outside gardening.
5. Ask about any special treatments they’ve used around the house. For example, some cleaning solutions contain silicone. Paint and varnish don’t adhere well to surfaces that have silicone residue on them. Also ask what kind of paint they’ve used on their walls. Knowing this will come in handy when you repaint your walls. They may even have the original paint colour in case you need to do some touching up.

Asking the previous owner these questions might remind them of other things that might have slipped their mind.

When you finally shake hands, take your keys and enter your new house, knowing these essential things will make it feel more like home. Now all you have to do is roll up your sleeves and settle in.