To be miffed about my filthy house

Most people get to a point in their lives when the upkeep of their dwelling is beyond them. Once upon a time they would have been young and energetic enough to do repairs and clean or would have had the budget to get others to do it for them, but time and money can get the better of us all, it will probably happen to most of us.

So corners don’t get hoovered, house repairs get left, junk accumulates, then it’s our time to die or be moved on and we don’t always have the means to leave a show home. New houses take work and anyone who thinks along these judgmental lines is not a realistic or caring member of society. You move in to somewhere as a young family, stop being judgmental and precious, roll your sleeves up and get on with it, the person you are judging who lives there before was a human, with friends and family that loved them, not a filthy cave dweller.

Maybe they were banging their heads off the wall…ask me how I know! 🙈

You paid 10% less, which took into account the state of the property. That is a discount on the full market rate for the property. One that was fair, but relied on you doing a little bit of work.

You might be wise to check how much your solicitor will be charging you to chase up the few £'00 you want to have the junk taken away.

@GRex - yeah.. but where did you get the -10% from?

OP does not say they had a 10% discount.

Another house of a similar layout nearby selling for 10% more does not mean OP's seller gave her a 10% discount.

Years ago, as a student, I worked for a removal company. We always stored people's belongings in the locked vans in the locked yard overnight so people could get cleaners in. We, also, provided a cleaning service for both clients. It included deep clean and carpets.

You got the keys very late in the day.

Each house I have moved into I have used a similar service. Or put stuff in storage and rented for a week or two. Present house we rewired before we moved in. Put in better loft insulation, had a deep clean done and decorated kids rooms before moving in
Oh and bought light bulbs as the miserable man took them away.

It took about a week. It was an added expense but well worth it. Slowly did up the rest of the house as snd when we could afford it. We found out our furniture didn't fit. We had come from a Georgian flat to a 1960s detached with low ceilings.

I wish you every happiness in your new home.

We have just bought a house and it was so dirty it took me a full day to just to clean the kitchen cupboard doors - the owners went into a home and their son-in-law thought he was doing us a favour selling it to us - they should be ashamed letting their mam and dad live in such filth! I have honestly never seen such dirt before just glad they had emptied it!! I feel your pain!

Purchase price £320k. £355k - 10% = £319,500. I rounded down to £35k. Which is quite a lot of reduction for £7k worth of work.

Where has this reduction of 35K come from?

@constantlylactating Fingers x you should get some money back for clearing out the junk left behind. It's very common that people do this, not realising that vacant possession really DOES mean vacant.

Ok, so reduction in house price £35k, cost £7k, that's £28k inconvenience money to get the job done. Air B&B / Vrbo for a month with stuff in storage £5k, windows done for £7k. £23k left for cleaning, carpets and a load left for inconvenience. It's not really a bad deal!

I think you were naive to be honest. You made big assumptions with too much positivity.

That said, I hope you can crawl some cost back as the lady should have done it before you moved. However from what you have said it was like before you bought it, you have exactly what I would have imagined! You’re lucky you’ve not uncovered worse things like damp, rot or infestations.

New windows simply wouldn't be 10% of the house cost. They will cost you what exactly - £20k? How much was the house, £300k?

Where did I say we received a huge discount 😂 it was a little bit cheaper because it needed all new windows. The house next door has all new windows, and sold last year for just 10% more than this one.

10% sounds pretty good to me 🤷‍♀️

Call them!

My neighbour did this. Not sure about filth although wouldn't surprise me as she was also late leaving, carrying out furniture to the last minute so i cant see how she had time. She hid random things in bushes and new owner needed a skip.

But the best part, a day or so later, she came to visit another neighbour and stayed late. Under cover of darkness, they both snuck to the skip and loaded up her car with her junk, and left what she didn't want! I saw them from the bathroom window!

Anything back from the solicitor, OP?

Ah. The contract itself is "vacant possession". The TA6 is not the legal contract and is not mandatory even though it is usually used. Because it isn't the actual contract clauses, "clean and tidy" in this context has no legal definition, so enforcement won't work sadly unless it's tangible items. The seller can also just tick "no" on this form. This is often done e.g. leaving garden furniture or whatever, which may or may not have a price attached; auctions will often tick "no" because it is bought as-is with rubbish, dirt etc.

Chase up your solicitor! Take photos of everything. The house is supposed to be left empty, unless you have agreed to buy specific things.

Clearly the woman was a hoarder. If you couldn't move the junk to see walls, etc, I'm not sure why you expected the house to be cleaned. The poor owner was clearly mentally unwell.

I hope you get some compensation, and that your solicitor is helpful!

You paid less for the house than it’s worth because it was so grimy and filled with rubbish, you knew you’d have to put some serious leg work in to make it habitable. There’s no way you viewed the property and didn’t realise it would be filthy and trusting the seller to clean it before leaving when she clearly hasn’t been able to clean it for years by the sound of things is pretty naive.

Sounds like you need another couple of deep cleans and the flooring will need replacing unless it’s hard wood to get rid of the dog scent. You will also likely need to repaint everywhere since strong smells tend to stick to walls.

We moved into a house that has / huge dogs the only thing that got ride of the smell was getting new carpets and underlay. Sounds a nightmare I'd be chasing the solicitor up today. I'm sure it's 2 weeks you have to report issues