Three hours after completion still in my house

[Twatarse]

As the title.

Completed at 2pm.

No keys. Agents frantically calling vendors. They are still packing the van. Agent and solicitor tell them in no uncertain terms that they do not own the property anymore and are now breaking the law.

An hour and a half passes and they drop the keys off with the agent.

Phew, we think, they are all gone. So we pick up the keys and drive to the property - they are still there and the house is still full. I mean full - could still see paintings on the wall in the lounge, hallway and kitchen filled with boxes, appliances.

Get a sob story of how they have been at work all day (completion date hardly comes as a fucking surprise, maybe take the day off as we did?)

I tell them that they no longer own the properly, me and my husband do, and that actually, we could legally walk in and lock the doors, “you couldn’t” came the reply - I don’t know what planet some people live on.

Called the agent who was like, What?! Solicitor aghast too. Our solicitor have contacted thieves saying that yep, we’ll just lock them out if we chose to and charge them to remove their properly.

I didn’t go in and lock the doors, I’m not that much of a prick even though it’s now my property and they are trespassing. My 15 month old was knackered in the back of the car.

Back at home now, thankfully only 5 mins down the road and thank god in a rented house so no massive deal tonight although removals booked for 9am.

I’m so pissed off. We’ve had a really awful few months, I’ve got a close relative in hospital, Ive been fighting for a diagnosis for them, I’ve been ill myself.

Why are people such dicks?

@Clymene as the Op has said ”dh has photographed everything. It really was dirty and cupboards and drawers filled with papers, rubbish, just crap really.”
“And yeah, this afternoon we were going to move some smaller bits over and have a clean. He’s done want he can tonight but he’s knackered and so am I.”

It’s actually common sense that people want to clean a house before actually moving things in! Would you be quite happy to move into a filthy house, because I wouldn’t? My standards are obviously higher than some on here!

[quote whoopy1]**@Clymene as the Op has said ”dh has photographed everything. It really was dirty and cupboards and drawers filled with papers, rubbish, just crap really.”
“And yeah, this afternoon we were going to move some smaller bits over and have a clean. He’s done want he can tonight but he’s knackered and so am I.”

It’s actually common sense that people want to clean a house before actually moving things in! Would you be quite happy to move into a filthy house, because I wouldn’t? My standards are obviously higher than some on here![/quote]
But you don't always get a choice - if you are buying and selling on the same day you usually have to take the house as is.

This exact thing happened to me and they had the nerve to pop back every few days to collect their mail and things they missed packing from the house. After two weeks of that, we said it’s not here anymore please don’t come back again. You are not rid of them I suspect. Definitely change the locks.

We moved last year, had to sell our house to buy so we needed to be out and in our new house same day. We put as much into storage as possible, boxed some stuff up for relatives to store and hired a van for the day before completion to pack as much as we could for moving day. The woman in our new house kept us waiting gone 6pm because she hadn't organised properly. We were ready with the first load of stuff at 10am! If she'd moved out when she was meant too we could have been out in time for our buyers (who luckily rented). They were so lovely as they knew how much our seller had held things up all the way through. Should have guessed moving day would go tits up too! Our son was just 2 at the time and needed to go to bed by 7! Didn't happen obviously as it was pure chaos 🙈

@Twatarse

We weren’t expecting it to be quite so filthy though! They left the cooker, dh said he opened the door and felt sick, thick with grease and dirt 🤢

Eurgh! This is why it's so important for vendors to have some respect for their sellers and move out at the agreed time. It's up to you as vendors if you want to leave your house an embrarassing shithole, but at least have the morals to hand that embarrassing shithole over at the agreed time, which then gives the new owners a house to get rid of your grease, hair and dead skin cells in the time they have made available with their employer.

It seems most of these moving issues are caused by any one of: a) total lack of thought for others & their time/inability to empathise or see someone else's arrangements from their point of view i.e.don't give a shit about inconviencing others AKA Cheeky Fucker b) stupidity/lack of knowledge of the moving process c) chaotic/disorganised lifestyle (underestimating how long it takes to pack up a house or advance booking of removals), but is mortified at the outcome and very apologetic.

I can live with type C people during a move, although it's a bit irksome. It does add extra stress but even just an attempt to apologise/make amends/speed up/offer to come back tomorrow to finish removing the stuff goes a long way to relieving the stress as it aids communication & at least things can then move forward.

Type B people I just can't understand. There are some people who are a bit slow/unworldly but conveyancers should make it their job to ensure that everyone understands the process and terms of contract. So this shouldn't actually happen.

Type A people are just plain selfish nasty people. Nothing else to say about them.

DH was once banging on the estate agents' locked door to try and get hold of the keys to our new flat. He'd waited in vain for a call to say that funds had been received and keys were ready to collect and the estate agents who had the keys had locked up for the evening. I guess they weren't bothered as we were renting a furnished flat and they knew we wouldn't be out on the streets that night so didn't really give a shit. Too much of a laissez faire attitude. We both had newish jobs so hadn't built up much annual leave yet, DH worked very long hours and the new flat needed a major clean and painting/new carpets all the way through (single old man had had it for years) before we had deliveries of new furniture arriving. We were doing all the work ourselves each evening after work/commute so the fact that we lost the day of completion completely to do a lot of prep was a MASSIVE pain in the arse. So I just can't understand the shruggers/manana people. Please think of other people.

for vendors to have some respect for their sellers BUYERS

[quote MeridianB]You’re not alone, OP….

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2579966-Bought-a-new-house-and-the-old-owners-didnt-think-they-had-to-move-out[/quote]

I thought my seller was taking the piss fannying about at 1pm on moving day, but the OP’s vendors & that post are something else.

My move was the first time I’ve done it in a chain. Never again.

CurlyhairedAssassin

There's also type D people - all packed up and ready to go but the supposedly experienced and well renowned removals company fuck up.

@tomwombsgans

This reminds me of another thread where the OP thought it was ok to have sandwiches instead of getting the fuck out of the house they no longer owned 🤣

Can anyone post a link to this one?

OP. You poor, poor thing.
Hope the move goes okay for you tomorrow and you manage to get it clean. Bastards. I am a slattern and procrastinate but fuck me, that's off the scale.

We had a similar thing when we bought our first house. Completion was at noon, which was when we turned up. We finally got into the house at about 6 as I refused to wait any longer and insisted on going onto the house and sitting upstairs while the previous owners faffed about moving things (they were doing it themselves with no van, just a couple of cars). They finally left at about 8pm.

Fortunately we hadn't planned to move in properly until the next day so it could have been a lot worse, but I couldn't believe how disorganised they were and how surprised they seemed to be that we actually wanted to get into our house.

We knew the house would need a lot of work, but it was also filthy and we subsequently discovered that they had left the attic full of stuff which we never managed to get them to clear. Nightmare!

I wad under the impression that once completion has happened, the house AND everything inside it is now the property of the new owners. But i have no legal training, so perhaps someone with more knowledge can confirm if that is correct or not!

This happened to me too. The previous owners were still in the house weeks after completion. We completed on the 12th December and they didn't leave until the new year. They left eventually but left behind an entire garage worth of old bathroom suites, broken lawnmowers etc. Nightmare. And my ex was too cowardly to push it in any way shape or form. I'm glad your solicitor is helpful and you have some backup. People can be absolutely selfish sometimes. I was only 19 then and didn't want to rock the boat. I'd go beserk if it happened to me now.

@ThurstonArmbrister it was deleted because OP thought she might have said something identifying and it got put in the papers. www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mum-left-fuming-new-owners-24404169.amp

I can’t believe there are some people who don’t see the problem.
Yes in this case the op had somewhere else to spend the night, but they might not have. What if they’d been sat there with everything in a removals van? What then?

[quote WrongWayApricot]@ThurstonArmbrister it was deleted because OP thought she might have said something identifying and it got put in the papers. www.google.com/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mum-left-fuming-new-owners-24404169.amp[/quote]
Do you mean, she didn't like the responses she was getting and asked for it to be taken down?

Nightmare. I hope you will soon be so happy and comfortable in your new home that you’ll feel this was all worthwhile.

I once moved into a flat that was so filthy, I overheard my two student-age nephews, who were helping me, whispering “Ugh, no, chuck that in the bin. Don’t let Auntie Thinking see it.”
I’m glad I never found out what was so hideous that it grossed them out!

@NiceTwin

My removal men didn't turn up on my moving day, despite me paying a deposit. I managed to find another firm who could send vans when they had finished on other jobs. I didn't get out of the house till 7pm and unpacked the other end at gone midnight. My dh had come to the new house at midday, to get the keys. Left me with 2 dogs, 2 kids and the house to sort out. It was the most stressful day of my life, I will never, ever move again after that.

Our purchasers were fantastic, they didn't move in for 8 weeks.

But I'll bet that you were onto your EAs immediately, letting them know there was a problem with your movers and that there would be a delay but you were doing your best to get it sorted ASAP, didn't you?

That's what normally considerate people would do.

The OP's vendors are just a bunch of CFs (as apparently are the ones defending them on here!)

Moving house is in the top 5 most stressful life experiences. OP also has to contend with taking an hour out to visit her unwell father, on a scheduled visit. That would add to the stress in itself - but then not being able to actually do the move in good time would massively increase the stress load because of uncertainty, financial implications, security implications, insurance etc.

Anyone who reckons ANY of this is ok has rocks in their head.

@JunoMcDuff “
“But you don't always get a choice - if you are buying and selling on the same day you usually have to take the house as is.”
The thing is this op was planning to have time to clean and sort out the house! She had her removal van booked for the following day. Now she’s lost that opportunity!

@Twatarse

Ds just text me.

They drove past and there is a houseful of stuff stacked on next doors driveway.

Oh, I bet our names are mud with the new neighbours.

Funnily enough though, I do like to abide by the law myself and I get a bit pissed off when other people don’t and it affects my life, so I couldn’t give a monkeys.

What? They've "packed" and left all their stuff outside, presumably overnight and are going to sleep in the house (that they don't own) with nothing with all their stuff just sat outside? So they've not booked removals at all? What happened to the van you saw sat outside? It beggars belief!

@Twatarse

We weren’t expecting it to be quite so filthy though! They left the cooker, dh said he opened the door and felt sick, thick with grease and dirt 🤢

My house was like that when I bought it - absolutely filthy. We booked carpet and oven cleaning. We thought the carpet was grey - no it was cream! And the oven cleaners were not happy bunnies - they used litres and litres of cleaning fluid and there was much f'ing and blinding going on from the kitchen. They cleaned commercial ovens and they said they'd never had one that filthy.

The buggers also took the coat rack off the wall, and took all the radiator covers.

But they were out on time!

This thread makes me so glad I moved into an empty house, the owner even had it professionally cleaned (and bought us a new dishwasher!). I can't believe the people on this thread saying its no big deal, moving is stressful enough without this kind of nonsense! Of course sometimes problems happen, removal vans don't turn up or whatever, and that is forgivable. But people should at least have planned and organised to be out on time, and anyone who says it is no big deal is probably the kind of person who would pull this kind of stunt themselves!

Mumsnet is amazing, a constant source of new perspectives. I had no idea that there were people who just ignore the date and time when the house they used to own becomes the property of the new owner.

I am flabbergasted reading about this family with three grown sons, who originally agreed to be out by Friday last week, allowing both parties to move over the weekend, and then, at the last minute begged to be allowed to postpone the final sale until Wednesday, forcing the buyers to take time off work for the move.

That in itself is cheeky fuckery of the finest order, but to still be sitting in the house once the sale has gone through? And to act indignant when the new owners are upset and ask them to get out? It would never have occurred to me that such a thing could be possible. They'd had since Friday last week, and they were ferrying bits and bobs in a small van? Then, when you finally got rid of them they left the place in a filthy and disgusting state?

Is it normal in the UK not to clean when you vacate a property? To leave all your rubbish and dirt for the next owner? I was unpleasantly surprised when I moved back to the UK and found that the previous owners of my house had taken most of the light bulbs and hadn't even left a single roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. I thought that was really petty, but at least someone had waltzed round with a duster and hoover, and the oven wasn't a health hazard. I didn't know how lucky I was!

Having read this, and the strangely relaxed attitude some people seem to have to the monstrous imposition. I strongly agree with this suggestion from further up the thread.

there needs to be a Clause added in the Contract that invokes financial penalties immediately, with, as a previous poster said, a sum of money to be retained by the solicitor and only released to the sellers if they abide by the stipulations for Completion.

And the penalties should kick in from the moment of completion, and be high enough that they act as an effective deterrent.

"Is it normal in the UK not to clean when you vacate a property? To leave all your rubbish and dirt for the next owner? I was unpleasantly surprised when I moved back to the UK and found that the previous owners of my house had taken most of the light bulbs and hadn't even left a single roll of toilet paper in the bathroom. I thought that was really petty, but at least someone had waltzed round with a duster and hoover, and the oven wasn't a health hazard. I didn't know how lucky I was!"

Not in my experience - people usually make a decent attempt to clean up! Mind you, I've only bought 3 houses in my life, so I don't have a wealth of experience!

One was running a little late, but they were lovely people and it worked to my advantage in the end, as they left me a sofa which I otherwise wouldn't have had, because they offered it to me when I turned up.
I was leaving a not-quite-marital home so wasn't planning to move in on the Friday anyway, was going to be on the weekend (with friends helping me move) so it was no skin off my nose that they were a couple of hours behind, plus they were working hard and extremely apologetic about it! Not like the CFs in the OP.

Did also find a small amount of detritus in the loft of the first house - but it could have been there from previous previous owners, it was so old! Just odd toys, ornaments and a very mothy flag.

I always cleaned houses I left too - ah, except for the second one because ex was moving new woman in - didn't bother with that!

I also thought one wasn't allowed to leave houses with no lightbulbs at all, but I could be wrong about that.

@DancingQueen85

So as I suggested there has been pretty much zero consequence to the situation. They were out a couple of hours later, the op can move in tomorrow. They were absolutely in the wrong but it doesn't sound like there was much harm done in the end.

Except now they have to either stay up all nightandclean, or move into a filthy house