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

There is no link legally here in the same way. If your sale goes through and your purchase doesn't, you're homeless. That's how it works.

If you're selling, you have to vacate, whether you've completed on your onward purchase or not.

There is no legal link between the buyer of the first house and the seller of the second (with the seller / buyer in the middle).

If there are a number of linked transactions, it's a chain.

I’m not sure if people aren’t reading the OP correctly or something because the replies are mental.

I have never heard of or experienced previous owners still living in the house by moving day, because it’s after the keys have changed hands and the sale is complete- there’s no reason for them to have been there! They didn’t hand in all their keys and stayed living in a house they don’t own, cheeky and weird.

That's the same, surely?

In England, there's no special clause that says your money doesn't count until everybody else has got their money. It becomes a chain because nobody can get their money until their buyer gets theirs. It must be the same in Scotland.

It's really no biggie and definitely not worth letting it bug your happiness. Now get on with the unpacking and enjoy the new house

We've had that in the past, we collected the keys and turned up to find the previous owners still moving out, very slowly one small van load at a time. All their pets were still running around and they hadn't cleaned a thing...and ur was filthy. We went in and started moving there stuff onto the pavement which hurried them up a bit.

The most recent time we moved myself, my kids and my cat had lunch in a car park while we waited for our keys.

they just agree between them, usually the seller says I will be out midday Saturday and then the new owners move in. Its very civilised

Exactly this. We don't do chains here.

They had the OP's money, she had the keys, they were sitting about in her house!

I can't even comprehend how they could have handed over the keys and not understood that that meant they'd quite literally shut the door behind themselves!

Absolutely cheeky fuckers, but it's by now, OP. I hope you're settling in now in your new home.

Trying to get my head around how this works. What if one party wants to move out on the Sunday, but the person buying their house wants to move in on the Saturday? How do they all agree who moves out when?

I guarantee they know

this is why the UK system is shit. Moving on the day of completion and can't move until money has been transferred.

In Jersey the money gets transferred the following Tuesday and everyone moves over the weekend at their leisure. There is no such thing as adverse possession.

And this is why I no longer work in the UK!

Yeah, the handing in of the keys and then remaining in the property is the weird part.

My parents moved in Scotland and had a similar situation but there was a hold up in handing the keys over. The sellers were moving abroad so not a chain exactly. My dad just went to the sellers to find out what the problem was and it turned out just to be their disorganisation. He ended up helping them make a couple of trips to the tip!

There's usually a time on the contract that they need to be out by and if they are still in after that, it's a breach and you can usually charge them interest/additional costs if you really wanted to press it. They were in the wrong. It was legally your house.

I mean moving day is just a nightmare anyway! I thought you were gonna be the people I heard in the park today as they were also waiting on their seller to vacate! This was at 2pm.
I was talking about it to my other half, would be far more sensible if an arrangement could be made where the moving took place over several days. Our moving day was pretty hideous as we had pressure from our buyer but our seller wasn't in a rush to vacate. We weren't either really. Ironically our buyer was in rental so actually they had the least urgency out of all of us to move.

I might be wrong but in Scotland,I don't think the notion of a chain really exists. The deal is between the one person who is buying and the one who is selling (via their solicitors). Once the funds have been confirmed as exchanged,it's not the new owner's problem where the old owner is going,the house doesn't belong to them anymore.

Incorrect. The funds move from top down. The top of chain has no onward purchase.

How do they move from top down? I wouldn't have any money to give the next person until the person buying my house had paid me first?? Surely it must be bottom up? The first time buyers transfer the money they are sitting on to the first seller and this passes all the way up the chain house by house until the final sellers get their money and keep it

How can funds move from the top of the chain down if the top of the chain have no onward purchase 😆 😆 😆

Funds move up the chain.

That’s terrible OP. Should never happen like that in Scotland. You hand in your keys in the morning and the house is no longer yours end of.

Hope you’re changing the locks op. Fuck knows how many spare sets of keys those cheeky buggers have.

And what people aren’t talking about is what would have happened if they accidentally set fire to the cooker / house. It wasn’t even theirs by this point. Utter madness.

I don’t know if it’s different in Scotland, but I’ve never heard of a chain being an issue. Once the buyer’s money has cleared then you no longer own the house and shouldn’t be on the property. Technically, anything still on the property at that time belongs to the new owners.

I have always moved the same day, but had movers do the packing, then it’s time to clean, leave a card/champagne for the new owners with instructions for any appliances and we’re off the property and keys handed in. We are not even in the vicinity when the new owners arrive.

Still a lot of moving parts

Hope for the best plan for the worst.

I don't like things done down to the wire so make contingencies

That doesn't mean I won't expect everyone to honey their side of things. It just means I plan for life to be a bit chaotic on that day of all days

Jeez.... openly admitting you are a CF too

Incorrect. The funds move from top down. The top of chain has no onward purchase.

They do exist. They are just less common and less prone to collapse.

When I bought my first flat, the sellers failed to hand over the keys. They were deaf so at the time the only way to communicate directly was via fax. . My solicitor suggested going down to see what was going on. They were still packing the van. They said they would be out by 8pm and hand the keys over. I collected them then the next day and went to take a look round that evening but the keys didn’t work . More faxes the next day…. They had accidentally given the solicitor a neighbours key and had accidentally posted out key through the neighbours door. They did have another key however and both solicitors told them (via fax) that they must provide the key. After a lot of faffing they brought the key to the hospital ward I was working on. I went round again , opened the door and the lights didn’t work. The meter had been read and then turned off. Due to the delay in getting in it was another week before we could get it out back on. When it did go on there was still no lights as they had broken a bed side lamp and that had tripped out the electrics. We didn’t know this so had to get an electrician in to check what was going on…. It was a lovely flat though

It’s not squatting if you tell them it’s no problem for them to stay for a bit. Like is it really a big deal?

No, you complete from bottom up.

You can't complete from top down as they're the end of the chain.