To think previous owners of our new house were being unreasonable?

No, once your buyer's funds have cleared in your account you clear out of the house because you no longer own it. You then wait for your funds to clear in your seller's account. But you do it from OUTSIDE of the house you're selling because it's not yours anymore!

Not true. I very recently moved. Everything was held up because my buyer was waiting for their buyers funds to come through.

Similar happened to us. The lady we were buying from was buying a new build. We arrived at our new house (all completed and keys exchanged) and she was sat inside waiting for the construction company to call her to collect her keys. We tried to explain to her that we had a removal van outside waiting to unpack and she was now sat in our house, but she was really rude and just kept saying that she couldn’t leave until she had her keys. We were kind at first and tried to help, but eventually explained this wasn’t our problem and in the end she had to be told to leave by our solicitor. She then sat outside our house for ages! This went on for hours and caused us all sorts of issues as we also had a new fridge freezer etc arriving the same day. People are weird!

Not in Scotland
Chains mean nothing

Ok.
so them being in the house still is irrelevant too.

when you buy a house and your own status of buying is dépendant of your status of sale. I would challenge to say it IS quite relevant. For both parties. It goes up so it was just a matter of time but should a problem in a chain occurs…everyone gets back to their house until sorted.

When I sold, the prerequisite for the keys getting handed over was the funds arriving with my solicitor. I only actually saw the funds in my own account a few hours after they were in the house already, and it could apparently have taken till the next day.

Some absolute fools on here who see little wrong with the vendors‘ behaviour. Mindblowing. I can only assume they have little experience of buying and selling houses.

Whether the next ones have completed is irrelevant to the OP.

It seems they followed the process and somehow you have had an answer before but your solicitors failed to check the next ones have completed too?!

I understand the stress.

people are stressful lol

Similar happened to us, we were relocating. Got the call that funds had transferred and keys available. We got the keys and headed to the house to find them still packing and loading the van. Their excuse was that they didn't think we'd move in that day with travelling so far, they had handed a set of keys to the agent but fully intended to move out at their leisure during the course of the day!

That’s different to the OP’s scenario though, because the seller had already handed over the keys, which doesn’t happen until the solicitor has informed them that they’ve received the funds and the sale has completed. The seller in this case was refusing to leave because they hadn’t had confirmation that their onward purchase had completed, which is absolutely nothing to do with the OP.

When we moved we were going into a hotel because of a gap between our sale and purchase completing. All our stuff had gone into storage so we only had final bits to load into the car on moving day.

The purchasers for our house turned up mid morning with their van but we hadn't been told that the funds had landed in our account. They were quite surprised that we were still there but I told them we weren't leaving until we had full confirmation that all was in order and that we could hand over the keys. They ended up lounging in our front garden until we were ready to hand over which was early afternoon. Things were getting a little tense but our lawyer emphasised that we should stay put until everything had gone through.

As she stood with a toddler and newborn- seriously @TheBerry

No, the money being in your solicitors account is considered the same as it being in yours. Once completion is done you have to be out, anything else is pure cheeky fuckery

Yet again, so many people with so little understanding of the law! The house belonged to OP. The previous owners had zero right to be there. They wouldn’t have been insured to be there and any damage they caused would have become OP’s problem. They should not have been there when OP arrived and I’m not surprised it ruined her arrival in her new home. People work long and hard to buy a home and completion/moving in should not be tainted by idiots who suddenly don’t want to move out and think they’re above the law. They should be fined for the time they overstayed or charged extortionate rent. This kind of situation would soon stop!

They had no right to be there everything was completed and transferred, they were stood in OPs house so of course they had to leave.

Yes and infact a good solicitor would advise against letting the vendor stay in your new house as "goodwill" gesture. Are they going to pay you rent? Is your new home insurance valid? What if they flood the place overnight? Are the terms of the mortgage valid? Lots of legal questions and issues. It's unfortunate Doris and Bill's sale didn't complete, but that is their problem to sort out.

It was mildly inconvenient,not the end of the world. When our friends moved they rocked up at the their new house and the people hadn't even started packing up the house,now that's something to get pissed off about!
We didn't get our keys until gone 5pm as the solicitor forgot to release the money,we were stuck waiting for hours with the vans outside. Things happen and you're in now,just enjoy your new home.

Exactly this! If the chain doesn’t complete, where it fails is the person that needs to find alternative accommodation. Which is likely to be towards the top of the chain if it’s a time thing.

I am shocked by some of these replies. The chain moves from the bottom up. You sign a contract to agree vacant possession, so when the sale completes you get out. This exact situation happened to a relative. Sale completed, moving lorry arrived at new house....owner still inside and refusing to leave until their onward purchase had completed. She refused to let anyone in and lots of calls had to be made to solicitors and agents to explain to the vendor to get out. She did, but in a huff. Solicitors had to explain she would be in breach of contract.

I think solicitors don't explain to people their obligations as part of the process. Our solicitor and agent told us to fill up the lorry and get out of our house by midday. We then sat in Sainsburys carpark waiting for the call, the lorry went to wait outside the new house. Call received, keys collected and we moved in. Our vendors had thankfully done the same thing.

It's complete cheeky fuckery to do otherwise and people are either badly informed or believe the rules don't apply to them. If their onward purchase failed to complete for any reason, then they would need to find a hotel, stay with relatives etc.

Am amazed you’ve got time to post haven’t you got boxes to unpack? Relax and enjoy your new home.

Where are you? I moved last year and our Sellers were still packing at 4.30pm!
We had been ready since 9am, everything in the moving van - completely ready to go!
We got a call off their estate agent a couple of towns away at about 2pm to collect the keys so off we went. Only to be told when we got there that there had been a mistake and they didn't have the keys (how can you think you have keys you don't have 😤).
I gave up trying to deal with the professionals and drove straight to the new house to speak to the sellers, not to confront them but just to find out what was happening! They are lovely people and explained that they were moving themselves in a van so 5pm would have been the earliest they could be out - their solicitors were aware but hadn't bothered to tell us!
It was a very long, very awful day that culminated in us sleeping in the sofa for the first night as we ran out of time to make our beds up (after doing two doubles for the children!). We had everything unpacked and livable within 3 days and moving day now is just a memory.

You're right. I'm in Scotland and was recently in a chain of four. Didn't get my keys until 5 p.m

To the people who said they do not have chains, if you are selling your house and buying another on the same day, that is a chain, albeit just 1 link of a chain.
The problem is that many people think the two contracts are the same, whereas the buying and selling are for 2 separate contracts.
The alternative to a chain is first time buyers (who have no house to sell), or a deceased person/or moving to a Care Home/abroad, who are not actually buying somewhere.
Otherwise, usually people need the funds from the sale of their house to fund their purchase. The alternative to this is to a) either have sufficient savings to purchase a house outright (Yes, I do know someone who is in this position), or b) to sell your house and rent temporarily. And I know several people who did this, thus they had the funds available for the purchase.
I also know someone who did his own conveyancing (without solicitors, and totally legal in England), but this actually made the logistics of transferring the funds / depositing the keys, etc a bit of a nightmare.

When we moved last year our solicitor told us there’s a 1pm rule now, regardless of the timing of completions everyone has to be out of their house by 1pm on moving day. I think this makes good sense.