Seller's property in new house - can we chuck it?

[m0therofdragons]

House is lovely until we opened the loft and there's a load of junk - tents, suitcases, books, vhs tapes, foam chair bed, pillows, sink etc etc

I called our solicitor who called their solicitor. No response (as their responses had to be dragged out at every stage of buying I'm hardly surprised now they've closed the case and we've completed). Called EA on my solicitor's advice but no response for a week now. I really cannot be bothered to chase this.

Legally, can we assume they don't want it and take it to the tip? I want to put our stuff in there so I can use the garage for my car!

[Temporaryanonymity]

It is your property now. Get rid of it!

[Ledbury]

Get a skip and charge the vendors for it

[thatdearoctopus]

Well, clearing the loft is the worst job in the world to me, so I'd pursue them and make them come and sort it out.

[fialor]

If the house was sold as "empty on completion" then yes it's yours.
Plus you should be able to bill them for the diposal.

[m0therofdragons]

The fact no one can contact them make me think it's unlikely they'll pay. The note they left said:

To use the dishwasher, press on then press start (er thanks we would have struggled with that one 🙄). Any other questions, just google it.

Possibly the least helpful note ever, but gives you the idea of the kind of people they are. They also took all the curtain poles they said they'd leave. On the plus side, main house was clean. Dh has loaded up my 7-seater (with all the seats down except driver side) and it spending Saturday morning at the recycling centre.

You know those tacky pictures you plug in and they light up with rainforest type sounds? Like you got in 1990s Chinese takeaways. We now have one of those 😳🤣

[m0therofdragons]

Oh and they had a bloody skip two weeks before moving. One piece of furniture he asked if we'd like him to leave in the garage, which I clearly said no thanks we have a shelving unit that's going there, is still there too.

[PickAChew]

Just send their solicitor a message saying that if xyz isn't removed by abcdate then it will be disposed of ASA after then.

[fialor]

M0therofdragons, when we moved into our current house the washing machine was broken but had washing that seemed to have been in the machine for weeks! We should have had a working washing machine.
All bedrooms still had clothes in it, the fridge was filthy with lord knows what inside it, and the garage was packed full of rubbish. The least said about the garden the better.

We had two options: clear out the rubbish and go after the seller to settle up on our out of pocket, or swallow the cost. We did the later but we kept the fridge (which he had forgotten to take, because prior to us buying the house, it was tenanted by 5 boys!).

The worse part is that they took the gas cooker pan support stand, which meant we could not cook. It took a week to get it back. The boys thought it would be funny to take it with them as a joke; I was not laughing.

I say get rid of the lot. Just remember to wear gloves!

[Boredboredboredboredbored]

Glad to hear you like the house but they are fuckers for doing that! My parents had the same in the last house they bought and they left a garage full as well. The daughter of the previous owners popped back some months later and asked for the tins of paint they had left in the shed!!

Yep take the lot up to the tip and hope that they may need some of it again in the future!

[m0therofdragons]

It's going to the dump today. They've had a week and a half and we have visitors next week so need to put the car in the garage from Monday so we don't up with a parking thread with neighbours writing about us on here.

The weirdest thing we've found is the main bedroom doesn't have a light. There is a fan which we naively assumed would be a light too. Nope, just a fan.

[flapjackfairy]

We found a box of photos of a dead indian woman that looked to be quite old up our attic when we moved in ! Maybe from the 1930s or so .
The head had a cloth tied up under the chin to keep the jaw closed etc, and an open coffin at what looked like a hindu funeral .
My daughter was well freaked out

[BubblesBuddy]

Some people find treasures in the attic. You could find something wonderful!

[halesie]

When we moved in to our house our sellers had taken some fixtures too. They were late leaving after completion and DH arrived to find them unscrewing the only letter box from the outside wall - apparently she carried on, saying it was a gift from a friend and had great sentimental value... it apparently didn't occur (or matter) to her that we wouldn't be able to have post delivered.

When we eventually got in, it was all clear apart from one small kitchen cupboard with some old coffee and tea stuff (largely sachets of sugar etc). We only had 2 days between moving in and going on holiday and had someone coming to look after our pets so we had to get the whole house unpacked and clean in that time. The coffee stuff all looked pretty unimportant so I assumed they'd left it on purpose and chucked it out. Roll on 2 weeks and we got a letter from the seller saying they had misplaced a sugar jar which was her late mother's and had great sentimental value and had they perhaps left it behind? Felt obliged to email her and tell her it was gone... and of course I felt a bit guilty about it. Even though they had fleeced us on price, mucked around with moving dates and removed fixtures. Gah.

Roll on a few more months and we received an email from her asking us to forward on any post as their redirection had ended. Obviously we should spend our time redirecting her post to save her paying to extend the redirection. How she thought we would receive their post without a letter box idk...

[m0therofdragons]

So, dh took it all to the tip this morning (all a load of junk). He'd been home 10 minutes (was still putting the seats back up in the car) and the old owners showed up in a van. Apparently their solicitor had told them to come today and we were expecting them. Nobody told us! I've had no calls or emails from solicitor or EA. He seemed a bit pissed but mostly with his son who was supposed to have emptied it while they were on holiday (he's 19). Solicitors are so shit.

[Desmondo2016]

No joke there was a cold and mouldy plate of roast dinner in the oven when I bought my last house.

[whyismykid]

A washing basket full of dirty laundry in the built in cupboards in the bathroom. i put it in a black bag and took it to the estate agents office and left it there!

[BubblesBuddy]

Who on earth expects a 19 year old to clear a loft and doesn't check they have done it? Did they want the stuff then? If they wanted it one would have thought they would have missed it by now? Did they go to the dump to retrieve the stuff?

[m0therofdragons]

They didn't really say much. They seemed confused as their solicitor had said it was arranged for them to collect Saturday. My solicitor asked when they could collect and I said any evening in the week after 5.30 so no idea where the communication fell apart.

We assumed that as they told us on viewing they didn't know if the loft was boarded as they never used it that the junk was the previous owner's. Turns out they did use it. I feel a bit bad but it's also pretty funny. The timing couldn't have been better if we'd scripted it!

[m0therofdragons]

I guess they didn't miss it as they've put all their stuff in storage while they stay with family as they wait for their new home to be built.

[specialsubject]

People who allegedly forget stuff in their own loft are too disorganised to bother with. Anyone who is really that gormless deserves the lesson they've just had.