To refuse to pay for developers mistake??

[outwardbound]

I bought an appartment offered with vacant possesion I negotiated over the price and said we wer'nt interested in the furnishings and would only make an offer on the property we haggled back and forth and agreed to a price I asked for a list of contents and carried on with the deal.
We exchanged and completed got the keys and moved in we were surprised to see thay had not cleared the appartment but believed they had taken what they wanted, so we relocated our own furniture in good faith, A week later I am called and told they need to make arrangments to collect all the items (we were never given a contents list to agree and sign) I express my shock and explain that we have moved in, they say that if I would like to cover the expense of moving the furniturn they would come to a deal with me, I refused saying I thought it was there mistake and that the contract states "all chattels in and included on any attached list are included in the sale" they are now threatening me with court action if I do not allow them access to remove these items or pay them £1000

I am at my wits end with worry and would appreciate your opinion

within the "" is as written on the contract, we never were given a list.

NN..I know it sounds idiotic but the negotiations were very foggy and we waited for the list, then got on with our lives, 2 full time jobs, children the sale and emptying of our house and emigrating..We held a little back to make the place look homely and rentable but when we collected the keys for the new place it was their responsibility to clear it before completion or not go ahead so we presumed they been in and taken what they wanted

"so we presumed they been in and taken what they wanted"

I think that´s odd tbh.

But, if there´s no list, then surely no furniture was included in the sale & none of it is yours?

But I would have thought that after completion they would be relying on your goodwill to let them collect stuff-especially if there was no message explaing why the place hadn´t been cleared & it would be done on a date convenient to you.

Convenient to us would have been before we took the keys! as we did infact cleared and cleaned and left a welcoming note and bottle of wine for the new owners of our house, we didnt go back a week later and say oh by the way I want a futher £1000 for the sofa I forgot to take

We sold a flat once and offered the existing gas cooker as part of the sale. Buyers said they didn't want it, so we got it removed - and regulations stipulate that the gas pipe must therefore be capped, which we paid to have done.

We then got a snotty letter from the agents asking where the cooker was, and that we should return it and have the gas pipe opened up as soon as possible "at our (DH and my) expense!"

Told them to take a hike and check their records which, fortunately, had noted that they buyers had not wanted the cooker. Heard no more about it. Sneaky gits.

You should have checked, really. Hmm you could take lots of different viewpoints on this and who's really to blame. BUT. There is one fact that is absolutely not in question:

There is no way that you are liable for any sort of cost for any of this. If you have made a mistake, it's one of omission, iyswim, and you have, most certainly, not caused them to incur ANY costs whatsoever.

Who keeps the furniture and what happens is up for discussion, but I would make it very very very clear that there is no way that ANY resolution will involve one penny being paid out by you. If they end up collecting, they do so at their expense. In fact, if any money changes hands, it'll be to you for providing storage for their stuff and allowing, very kindly, access to your house.

When we bought our house we were a bit concerned that the owners would leave the attic and garage filled with rubbish and asked the solicitor what our position was if they left something and then wanted it back. He said that whatever was in the house at the time of completion was ours.

Can you change the letting agent so you are not hassled by the developer at every turn? And get the contents valued by a house clearance company (would probably come to about £10 if the stuff is that old!) and send the valuation to the developer and say that is what you are willing to pay, after your costs for storage have been taken out of the valuation?

I am surprised that you used the same solicitor - surely that would be a conflict of interests on their part, as is now being proved.

When I was looking for a solicitor when I sold my house, one I approached refused on the grounds that someone else at the firm was already representing the buyer. From what they said, I thought that it was a legal position, that the law wouldn't allow the conflict of interests, too.

My initial instinct is that whatever is left in the property is yours to do with as you like.

Years ago I dabbled in Scottish residential property (bearing in mind that the system is different in England and Scotland) and we frequently had clients complain that the seller had left furniture etc in the house. Our advice always was that if they didn't want it they should have it removed and attempt to recover costs from the seller (though in practice the cost of recovery was often more than the removal costs our clients had incurred, so not worth pursuing). It seems really odd that the developers are now lurking around asking for money.

I think in retrospect it was an error using the developers solicitor. Again, different systems, but in scotland a solicitor is not allowed to act for both a developer and their purchaser, due to conflict of interest.
It sounds like the solicitor has made a right hash of the contract by referring to a list of contents when none was attached to the contract.

I second the idea that you write to the solicitor asking what they're going tk do about this, since in large part it seems their fault. If they don't come up with an acceptable response I'd be considering reporting them to the law society.

Many thanks everyone I do appreciate all your thoughts, I have asked the solicitor to continue to help us after talking to my family sol' who said that he (the original) could and in fact should help us at little or no cost to ourselves...however the answer was they cannot represent us now this has become litigation as they are not qualified in this area....

I asked him why there had never been a list of contents for each side to agree and sign and he said it was the sellers responsibility to provide this and not his ???????

I know it would be simple to give them the keys but all this demands for extra money and threatening emails I recieve from their legal deptartment hs made me so mad!

I would'nt dream of going back to my old house now and saying " oh btw can I have £1000 for that sofa I forgot..even if they had got rid of it or sold it I'd surely have to accept that as it was my mistake to leave it there? These developers left it a week to contact me and then asked for money?! not right however I look at it