Bought a new house and the old owners didn't think they had to move out!

[thumb3lina]

So today we went to complete on our new house, very excited and all packed ready to go. We got a call from our solicitor to say it was completed and we left to go to our new home, with all of our things. Stopped off at the estate agents, got the keys, everything fine.

We get there, go to the front door, put the key in and have a massive shock to find the previous owners sitting in the lounge. We asked who they were and they introduced themselves as the previous owners. They hadn't even packed one box!! DH asks them why they are still in OUR house and they inform us that they decided not to move out until Sunday!? We pointed out that we had all of our things in a van outside with our 2 month old baby and DH politely asked them to leave to which they replied it would be too inconvenient for them to leave today!

We ended up threatening to call the police as we legally owned the house and now had nowhere to go, so they said they would leave in an hour but acted as if we were being very unreasonable. We had to get all of our helpers to help them pack and they ended up leaving 5 hours later.

I'm also quite pissed off with the agent as surely they should make sure these situations don't happen.

If that's the case then you must move in rich circles! To do that you almost always need to be very well off and/or mortgage free. Most people cannot afford to carry the cost (or the risk) of having two mortgages running simultaneously even for a few days and bridging loans are expensive and risky and rarely granted these days.

Also most people need to automatically transfer the equity in their first house to act as the cash deposit on the second. Few people have large amounts of cash to put down without having to release it from their first property simultaneously as soon as the sale goes through.

It happens to better off people who are older and have nest eggs and are maybe downsizing, but not often to younger people who are still climbing the property ladder and every penny counts.

And we thought it was bad when we turned up at our new house to find the garage was absolutely stuffed with the previous owners belongings. They'd kept a key so they could just come back for it all!

Luckily we weren't moving in that day so by the time we came back they'd returned the key and cleared it out after we complained to the solicitor.

Yanbu OP. Just what you need with a 2 month old, a house full of rubbish to clean.

I used to work in conveyancing and this kind of thing happened frequently. I used to have to sit down with any sellers and really hammer it home to them that completion meant moving out day! I've had lots of buyers go to move in and find the previous owner there! I think people tend to think of "completion" as the day the paperwork is completed and then they'll be able to negotiate (another) moving in day!!

I like the sound of the American system mentioned earlier where there is a day or so between the last people moving out and you moving in. I can't see how it works financially though. If there is a chain then everyone needs to move on the same day for all the money to change hands. - I've lived in several countries and haven't heard of such a chain anywhere else. I guess it's possible but people would consider it too much of a hassle.

What happens when you're buying a house is that you get a mortgage to cover the entire purchase price of the new one, and deadline by when you should sell the previous one and pay off a part (or entire) loan. Or alternately banks offer repayment break for the previous loan until you manage to sell the property.

Of course, this has its own risks, but at least you would have plenty of time to pack and move. And people normally expect to get keys some time before they move, so they can renovate before they move - of course it's easier to do the work when the house is empty.

Actually I confess this was me . I was moving house when heavily pregnant and my obsessively tightfisted exh had got a shifty looking man witha mullet , but crucially a van, instead of a proper removals company . After literally one trip and after demanding the cash up front the man with the van buggered off never to be seen again leaving a sofa and about forty boxes that had to be carried by us making several 40 minute trips in our small car . I was so stressed and annoyed it was horrible but I knew it was our fault. The new owner was ok about it but rather tight lipped as she cleaned her new home in silence. Sorry lady:(

Ha ha. Sorry for laughing - it must have been awful for you. They are bonkers! I know moving is stressful and I think you did really well to cope with that. Thanks for making me chuckle though!

Wow, when I read the first message, I was flabbergasted that this happened! But then reading the rest I see it is actually common.

I can understand not realising how long it would take to pack - particularly people moving for the first time, perhaps before they'd just been in furnished rentals, or for the more elderly for whom the experience is lost is in the midsts fo time - but to just not know? I'm one of those who suck at all sorts of 'life things', but even I know that if you sell a house you can't live there anymore!

I was upset at one set of landlords in the States, who told us to be out by 5pm on a particular day - they came by at noon for final inspection, in the middle of a very nasty thunderstorm, and took the keys away with them. The lady doing the inspection seemed to be completely unaware that we had until 5pm and refused to believe the paperwork we showed her, threatening legal action if we didn't hand over the keys. Luckily we had finished packing into the van, but the van wasn't there at the time as DH's (then BF's) parents had driven it out to go get lunch. For some reason they'd taken our car too - I can't remember, maybe his Mum was off doing something else. So we grabbed a few last things left out and went outside into the rain, then huddled under the eaves until DH's parents (Dad?) got back with the van. The rain was so bad they had (sensibly) decided not to drive until it let up, so it was hours, and we were sopping wet and truly miserable by the time they came with food and shelter (house was in the middle of the countryside, there was no where else to go).

When DS2 bought his current house, it was empty but the owners had left immense amounts of stuff in the drive. They had made arrangements for it to be cleared so DS2 was not bothered. I was delighted as they had chucked out some real gems, several big white cooking/serving dishes, various cooking utensils, heaps of christmas wrapping paper, ribbons and little gift bags, and an electric can opener with which I was, and still am, delighted.

By the time the official clearers turned up, the pile was very dimininished by passers-by cherry picking the rest of it.

Wow!!! I was shocked to read the OP but even more shocked to realise this happens a fair bit!!

We had this. The arseholes had pushed and pushed for early completion and then weren't ready to go on the day. It took 4 hours for the feckers to leave. Fortunately, we were moving from a rental property owned by X's boss so had allowed a couple of days before getting the removals van in.

The husband turned out to be a racist and the DIY they'd done was very shoddy.

I have a nicer story (sort of). We bought our first house from a guy who had been renting it out, so no chain. For unknown reasons it still took absolutely ages, and resulted in us and the seller ranting between us about the incompetencies of the estate agents. However we were in a rental and the contract ran out two weeks before our finally agreed completion date. We could only renew for the year not for a couple of weeks so had to move out. This came up in conversation with our seller and he immediately offered to let us move into his now empty house two weeks early. We were a bit surprised to say the least but it saved us a whole load of hassle.

I felt a bit guilty as I would never have offered that if circumstances were reversed - once someones in, if it goes pearshaped and they refuse to go you have to evict them etc etc so its not worth the risk. Now I know that we are decent people. We didnt unpack anything, we slept on a matress on the floor for two weeks, and had the sale gone pear shaped we would have been out into B&B with stuff in storage the same day. But he didnt know that, so was taking an awful risk.

It all went to plan, we gave him a hefty gift of cash for the favour and we've been here since. I was so very grateful to him, at the same time as thinking him rather brave!

The husband turned out to be a racist

How on earth did you find that out subsequently?

When DS1 and DDiL moved to their previous house the owner hadn't moved out and ran up and down shouting to the neighbours "They're making me leave my home!"
When she finally went she left a garage full of stuff and a nasty hot tub. The solicitor gave her a week to return and remove it all. She didn't so DS had to get rid of it.
At their current house the previous owners (who were actually very nice) had lots of 'tasteful' ornaments on the front garden. Their daughter kept coming back to remove them one by one over several days, including a concrete seat.

I think I might inadvertently have been one of the crazies.

We were selling my husband's bachelor pad - it was rented out to tenants who trashed it, we accepted an offer on it when I was 4 months pregnant with DC2, the sale didn't go through until until DC2 was 3 weeks old. We'd had to move back into the flat - hours from my husbands work and the hospital I was supposed to give birth in, as we given notice on our rental and the sale was taking so long.

When we finally completed I had appalling mastitis and a breast abscess, my DD had lost so much weight we had kept being re -admitted to keep an eye on her feeding. My 18 month old was going stir-crazy and my husband wasn't able to take much time off work as he'd just come back from paternity leave. It was a horrific move and I still feel terrible about the state the flat was in when we left, in fairly sure she came round after completion and the babies and I were still there throwing stuff into boxes - the vendor was so understanding and actually told me to stop stressing about the cleaning.

In our defence we had really, really pushed for completion at any stage before I had the baby, perhaps if that had happened I would have been a little bit more on it.

Same thing occurred to me. How did you buy a house without meeting the owners? We thought it bad enough when buying our first house we arrived to find every lightbulb and fitting removed. We shouldn't have been surprised as when viewing the house they mentioned they might be taking the sink with them! They were in their sixties and we viewed the house in our early twenties holding a tiny baby. How mean can people be? When we eventually moved eight years later we left fitted carpets and other fittings which were all relatively new. We felt for the young couple with there baby. The neighbour's thought we were mad and said they would be charging when they move. There you are, as my mil used to say, "none so strange as folk"!

Our vendors were four hours late with they keys on completion day. Fortunately, they had actually gone by the time we got to the house.

They had made the buying process a total nightmare - everything from dragging their feet over exchange so they could have parties in the house to constantly harassing us about our sale. I eventually lost it with their EA when she tried to suggest we were holding things up.

They left a load of junk in the house saying that they thought we might want it. No, we don't want your old laminate flooring, you fuckwit. They then had the cheek to ask their EA to call us and ask us to post some family photos they'd left behind. What a shame they'd already gone in the bin.

I love this thread. This chain business must be unique to the UK. I've bought two properties from sitting owners and each time have let the ex owners have extra days to clear their stuff out.

OMG what loons some people are!

I've heard of quite a few people that this has happened to. A friend arrived on moving in day to find the people they were buying off putting up their Christmas tree. The couple were selling due to financial difficulties and were very clear about the fact that they were moving against their will.

I'm quite sympathetic to people not actually being able to vacate the house by noon or 1pm or whatever the chosen time is - if you don't move house very often it can be very easy to underestimate how long it actually takes to get everything into the removal lorry etc. I know it took us a couple of hours longer than we expected it to, and when we arrived at our new house they were still there desperately throwing their belongings into the lorry too. But we apologised profusely and our buyers said 'no problem, these things happen' and then the same was repeated with the house we were buying.

Having said that, when we moved house, my elderly dad couldn't believe that it all had to be done in a day and outright refused to believe me that that is what people do. He was adamant that everyone would shake hands, be on friendly terms and spend a few days moving their stuff about, because that is what had happened when my parents bought their house in the 1950s outright, with no mortgage and no chain, which almost certainly was why it was no big deal

What happens when you're buying a house is that you get a mortgage to cover the entire purchase price of the new one, and deadline by when you should sell the previous one and pay off a part (or entire) loan. Or alternately banks offer repayment break for the previous loan until you manage to sell the property.

I think I understand, so if you have a $300k house and you are buying a $500k house then you get a mortgage for the full $500k and only when you have sold the $300k house do you then use any equity in the house as your deposit.

Does that mean though that you are having to make payments on both mortgages?

I'm quite sympathetic to people not actually being able to vacate the house by noon or 1pm or whatever the chosen time is - if you don't move house very often it can be very easy to underestimate how long it actually takes to get everything into the removal lorry etc.

But the removals company are experienced in removals so will sort it out. Quite simply if you are in a chain situation you pay for removals. It is part of the cost of moving.

Does that mean though that you are having to make payments on both mortgages?

I imagine that paying for removals in the uk is the cheaper option of the 2.

Wtf! 😮I'm speechless!

Tobysmum the removals companies can get it wrong too. They did in our case.

We once sold a house which we had lived in, and had also previously let, and at the time of sale, it was on a buy to let mortgage, so we were in a position to move out a few days early, into our home with a residential mortgage.

We spent loads of time cleaning, and making it spotless for the new owner.

On the day of the completion, there was quite a long chain, and we still hadn't received the money by late in the afternoon. Our EA tried to get us to let her have the keys before completion, but our solicitor vehemently advised against it, so we didn't. (Typical bloody EA, treating the buyer as the client, rather than the vendor who actually, you know, pays them!)

In the end, the money was transferred in the nick of time, so she moved in at about 5:00.

I always felt quite pleased that we had cleaned so well, as I would have felt terrible for her moving into a pigsty at 5:00 pm, although, God knows, we have moved into some dirty houses, in our time!