To be miffed about my filthy house

You can’t. Especially as my ‘clean’ might vary with your expectations. Possessions are one thing, not arriving to a spotless house is another.

But isn't part of settlement where you agree to buy it as is, I would assume the vendor has to remove their belongings because of vacant possession but I don't see how they can legally charge them cleaning?

Our house was in a state when we moved in. The surveyor had advised he had seen a sign of mouse droppings in the under stairs cupboard but we never imagined a house as overrun with mice as we found. There were mouse droppings in the (dirty) fridge ffs. Kitchen inside cupboard doors were covered in layers of years of grime. The outside ones clearly cleaned for viewing and not cleaned after.

It did make it hard to begin with. We did everything we could to get it clean and free of mice (professionals and ourselves) and the smell lessened over time. Then worked on getting a room at a time how we wanted it starting with the living room so we had somewhere to retreat to and relax.

You’ll get there and down the line this will be a distant memory, but I really feel for you - it’s so unpleasant and must be even worse with smaller kids

No it's not standard and you should be able to expect a basic level of cleanliness . But as you bought it off a lady who sounds like she wasn't coping , lots for her sons to deal with , you knew it was dirty from what you saw, you got good value for the space etc it doesn't sound surprising. With a baby I think you were optimistic to think you'd all be able to move in and live from day 1.

When you saw the state of the house at the final viewing, you should have told your solicitor to agree with the vendor’s side that the house would be completely empty of possessions on completion day, and that it was to be deep-cleaned. Alarm bells should have been ringing when you saw the state of the place. Failing that, on completion day, when you saw the state it was left in, you should have taken photos of everything before allowing a cleaner in, and should have rung your solicitor immediately to complain strongly. If you phoned your solicitor a week ago and have not had a response, you should be phoning them every hour on the hour until you speak to someone! You’re being far too soft about this. Insist on charging the vendor for all the deep cleaning and the removal of any furniture/items left behind. Do not pay your solicitor’s bill until they have negotiated this for you. Take photos or a video now before you do any more cleaning/clearing

Exactly.

Your solicitor reclaims the cost of moving the stuff left behind from her.

We bought our house from a very elderly widowed lady who clearly had never dealt with a house sale before, based on how the process had gone. On moving in day, we arrived to find her leaving the property, happily having left some beds, odd bits of furniture and food in the cupboards. Her son had arrived to pick her up and he was mortified, v apologetic but obviously it was too late to do anything. Luckily the house was spotlessly clean though.

We weren’t exactly chuffed but smiled her on her way and sorted the stuff ourselves afterwards. Ten years on, v happy here still. I think sometimes with these situations the vendor is inexperienced and doesn’t understand potential consequences. Or possibly chancing their luck! We’ll never know for sure.

I could not have bought a property that was filthy on viewing though - particularly bathrooms and kitchen.

I agree about capacity. My Mother was a hoarder but it was only after both her and DF were hospitalised at the same time and the OT explaining quite bluntly that neither of them could return home until it was sorted would she let me help or tackle the problem. Her choices as a grown woman were very different to mine. Especially when it came to housekeeping!

One, it would take more effort to pack and transport than putting it in a skip. Two, if she's moved into assisted living etc then you couldn't dump it there. Three, it would be seen as harrasment etc and there'd be massive fallout and come back.
I pity the person who buys the houses my hoarder neighbour owns. There's nothing his children can do to make his situation better.

It probably was cleaned. To her mind of what cleaning was and what she was able to do.

The price you paid refelected the condition of the house. You viewed and accepted it. Removal of the stuff left you should have a case for getting that paid but not being clean to your standards after multiple (assumption) viewings is something you will have to take as you got what you paid for.

I dont know why you would assume that, firstly you knew it smelt and secondly you could see with your own eyes it was horded.

Untidy, cluttered homes by their definition are not clean homes, because you cannot clean behind or around all the stuff.

You can bill for the possessions left behind and the skip cost, I dont know how successful you'll be with that, but I doubt you can bill for the cleaning. You buy a house more or less as seen

And as for living like that, and her sons allowing her to live like that, lots of people are horders, the sons might also have been, none of them may have seen a problem and people have agency and capacity to make unwise and unpleasant choices for themselves.

Clean the house and then enjoy the bargain you got.

She’s got ops money from house so can’t do the “poor little me can’t afford it”

Why didn’t she pay for a deep clean then? Once all her stuff was out?

Hoarding disorder is a recognised mental health condition

A bit of compassion for this elderly woman wouldn't go amiss

Despite seeing the house, I think you had unrealistic expectations. Was naive to try to move in on the day of purchase

Perhaps rent locally for a few weeks while you / cleaners blitz it

Or, suggest you focus on getting one room nice, so you have somewhere that feels nice

Also don’t just automatically get a skip, get quotes from local licensed rubbish removal companies as if you are doing a renovation you can save a lot of money rather than just getting skips, we saved hundreds.

I think you have been incredibly naive thinking a house that had so much stuff in that you couldn’t see that floor and smelled of dogs would be clean, it was just never going to happen .

It’s really easy for people to criticise the sons but when you are in that position and it is your parent you find what you can do in reality is often quite limited if your parent refuses help. You can’t just make them as people have the legal right to make their own decisions if they are deemed to have the capacity to do so and that includes decisions that other people may consider unwise.

As others have said you can speak to your solicitor about the things left behind but personally at this point I would focus on the fact you have a lot more house than you would have other wise and get on with ripping up and disposing of carpets at this point. Take photos and when you in time sitting in what will become your lovely home you can look back and see how far it has come.

I think the cleaners should have quoted you upon seeing the house rather than not getting it all done, you might be better to get an Air BnB nearby and strip the place out yourself, it'll probably cost the same as such a big deep clean. Plus it'll give the house chance to be aired out.

You have to sign to say you won't leave anything behind and that the house will be left in reasonable condition.

I remember signing it just a few weeks ago before we moved.

Actually you can recover the money for removal of their possessions, we did so. Our seller left a garage full of junk. We went through our solicitor and ended up hiring a skip, which the seller reimbursed us for.

Poor old woman 😒 as a child my family moved into somewhere in a state. I remember fondly how my parents priories done bed room at a time too sort...so for months we were all in one room then it was just me and my siblings and slowly had a clean room each. I was 8 so remember. It must be hard with a baby too. Even at 8 I remember my mum being terrified on us children stepping on sharp things embedded in the carpet

If I wasn’t prepared to ‘deal with it’, I wouldn’t have bought the place.

Snap. We hired a cleaning company. Granted it’s a 6 bedroom house, but 20 hours barely touched the surface. It took me and the cleaner 10 hours just to do the kitchen.
if you have the funds, continue with the hired cleaner and just go from by room.