To want to take vengeance on the horrible cow who is buying our house

[pennyapples]

she has waited until two days before we are due to exchange to decide she isnt prepared to pay what she had offered, she's reducing the price and we have had to go with it because we are so far committed.

The estate agent shared her reaction, she was basically laughing at us. Clear she planned all along this last move.

Feel gutted and a bit shocked that somebody can have no morals whatsoever. I know it's business but honestly what a cow.

Should let it go of course but just consumed by anger at present and keen to trash the place before she moves in. Bad idea though right?

midnite No one has ever left a house in clean condition for me to move in to

Why is this? Genuinely, can I please buy my next house from you? or maybe we can swap! because I clean like a demon when moving out - right down to removing drawers completely so backs are wiped as thoroughly as sides & runners. I would hate to leave a house anything but spotless for someone else.
What do I move into? ....pubes on the bedroom carpet, fag ends in the toilet, inch thick grease on tops of cupboards ...ad nauseum
Every bloody time!

OP - I think your buyer is a lousy human being, but you are taking the right stance to sit the moral high ground and trust to karma.

My only other thought was that you could have asked your solicitor to respond that the reduced figure places your own purchase at risk because of cash shortfall - so the chain may collapse. See how keen she is to renegotiate if she risks losing the deal altogether. Its a high risk strategy though.

Yes I did read the bit about an afternoon's fantasising - that's fine.

I also read the gleeful retelling of grafitti-ing walls with marker pen and beer running down stairs. That's not on, in my book (of karma).

I do wonder - what did the buyer do after these acts of damage - put their hands up and say "Fair cop, I'm an arse, I'll mend my ways and never act the sharp business-person again". Or did they have a word with their solicitor.

i've owned 3 houses and all of them were filthy when we moved in.

house 1 - couple had split and husband had a party before he moved out, beer cans and used glasses were left all over the place.

house 2 - the kitchen cupboards were filthy and there were mouse droppings everywhere

house 3 - it took us 3 days to move all the crap to the tip, loads of furniture left in the garden.

our last buyer tried it on with us, 2 days before exchange, rang and said her buyer has asked her to reduce by 10k, but she and the lower end of the chain had already p'd us off so much with months of messing around, i just told her it was her problem, not ours and that i was putting the house back on the market and put the phone down on her. sale all went ahead and we never heard anything more about the alleged 10k scamdrop.

The first house I bought the previous owner left a rusty banged up car on the drive and a broken kitchen sink (think smashed not leaky) - I was a lovely buyer too.

The last house we bought, they took everything that wasn't listed. The beautiful light fittings taken, hooks off doors, the number plaque by the front door, if it wasn't mentioned by name it wasn't there. It wasn't our fault that the house prices had dropped by £40K in three years between them buying and selling, and we had paid over 15 grand more than the last house sold in that terrace because it was so beautifully done inside.

On the other hand the last house we sold, we got a thank you card from the new owner because we left it so clean.

My most recent purchase saw the vendors cleaning when my removal van arrived - three hours after completion!
I had a straight choice between saying "oh, don't worry I will live with having to clean your crud " or letting them get on with it, but then having to pay the removal people for running into an additional day.

To be fair, they were nice enough people - and they moved within close range so we now share several contacts.
Sometimes, you just have to grin and bear it.

Melaniecheeks
In the case of the London house with the beer and marker pens the buyer did absolutely nothing : the vendor is a very high profile businessman (even now 30 years later) with some very nasty legal friends. Messing about with the purchase was a bad thing.

The wrecking party was a compulsory purchase in the 80's when society was not in a happy place.

Sassh

The numbered pigs! Pmsl that is a very special kind of evil.

I am from a pig farming background. I know how hard it is to catch the little fuckers.

My cousin bought a house. The vendors had taken the water tank from the loft! My cousin turned on the water and it poured out of the loft. It cost the vendors far far more than the value of the tank for tank replacement and damage repair.

I'm absolutely sure it wasn't done on purpose - the house we bought was empty before we moved in and a relative must have gone in and cleaned the place. Two weeks later we had a problem with the upstairs toilet. It appeared that whoever had cleaned the bathroom had managed to flush a floorcloth down the loo, which sat at the bottom for the soil pipe. Over the next two weeks, all the solids from the loo built up. A poor emergency plumber had to saw off the pipe, unblock it and put a new one in and the whole of the back garden was covered in raw sewage. Mmm, lovely.

I know people are suggesting not to clean, but you really ought to clean the bathroom . . .

@ jasmine

Eggs on the walls and the floorborads - it's a fucker to clean and sticks to high heaven.

I would take a hammer to all the bathroom and kitchen tiles, crack and smash enough to make her have to retile it all.

Knock some plaster off....at the top of the stairs, at the highest point (throw bricks at it) so it's a pain in the arse and has to be done professionally.

OOOOOOH...here's a bastard of a job. disconnect the sockets, and cut the wires really, really short. (turn power off first)

Block the upstairs loo with an entire roll of toilet paper, get it right down the pipe past the u bend. (ds does this on a regular basis, I can confirm it's also a fucker of a job to fix.

Get Jelly baff and block the bath and sink plumbing, or mud, lots of mud - I had to disconnect EVERYTHING to un block that.

pennyapples
Good luck with the move and your happiness in the new place.

I am very suspicious of your EA. Are they happy to take a hit on your fees because the new owner is going to give her rental business to them?
I feel the same and that they haven't done as much as they should to manage the situation, possibly because they get or are likely to get more business through the BTL woman.
I certainly wouldn't use them ever again or recommend them, but then again when you say 'a reduction in fees' they did what they could to help smooth things over and they were as good as they could be at that short notice? Hopefully it's not as bad financially as you first thought.

The revenge fantasies are funny, but probably wouldn't make you feel any better in the event and would only really impact on her future tenants, that's if they didn't cost you even more £ in compensation. The most important thing is that you got the new place that you wanted and should be looking forward to enjoying it.

The big lesson is that there's no sentiment in business. You were selling a home, which is emotional - while she's only buying a property to make money from, no emotion involved at all. I wonder if she has form and the local EAs know it? That said I don't think you are BU to be upset.
She's not a nice person, not very honourable, so I'm sure she'll come up against something and get her dues, whether you witness it or not.

instead of taking stuff out, why not put stuff in? get any old crap you can- broken furniture, rusty white goods, couch, any general crap you can get your hands in for free and fill your old house to the rafters with it. what a pain in the arse when they have to clear the entire place of crap before they can move their stuff in.