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.

[giraffesCantReachTheirToes]

[lalalalyra]

Not quite the same, but my friend recently swapped her HA home with another couple in the same street. Her house was a big three level townhouse with 5 beds and because she's only got one DD at home she swapped with a bigger family who were cramped into a two bedroom.

She spent weeks sorting and packing and on moving day she had a crowd of about 15 people to help her because you couldn't put anything in a van due to the distance - it just had to be carried. Come 1pm (the arranged time) we start moving the first lot and arrive at the other house to find the wife still packing (and still trying to work out how to get the huge wardrobes out as they'd been built in room), the husband faffing about sorting his model railway and the five kids (15-8ish) packing their toys in backpacks. They had 2 people arriving at 2 to help them move.

They were hopeless. Everyone else basically set up a relay - take one thing from friend's house to her new house, then bring something of other family over. Basically to help friend, but also helping them. Which worked for abou an hour until the husband and his 2 mates objected to "humphing someone else's stuff" at which point the people who were in the house helping his wife and everyone else left them to it and went for food. Two hours later they phoned and begged for the relay to restart and the helpers to come back.

[Seriouslyffs]

Tailz
Exactly that. He'd killed his wife in the house many years ago and her body was only discovered a couple of years before. He'd been remanded, tried, served a short sentence and moved back in and sold the house. To the new neighbours who funnily enough didn't want him hanging around!

[eurochick]

We completed and exchanged on the same day so it was all a bit fraught. We had to pack up the house and just have faith that it was all going to go through. We got the call that it had completed as we were driving from old place to new. When we arrived, they had just started loading transits to self move. The fishwife previous owner screamed at me on the driveway while I was holding my 5 month old who needed feeding and then slammed the (my!) front door in my face. When they deigned to let us in to feed the baby, we found an empty room then the husband of fish wife came in and had a go at me for being rude to his wife while I was sitting there on the floor with my tits out feeding the baby. Our movers ended up helping them load. They finally fucked off about 6pm, at which point we could start unloading. They left us with loads of crap too. Fuckers.

[gooseberryroolz]

But why did you threaten the police instead of getting straight on the phone to your solicitor (the legal remedy is civil and written into your contracts) ?

And what on earth made them switch from 'we're not leaving today' to 'we'll be out in an HOUR'??

Really bizarre.

[Anniegetyourgun]

When we moved out of the former marital home the new owners practically had to remove XH with a crane. Then he kept popping round for weeks after to see if any of his post had gone in their external letter box. They had to threaten him with the police in the end.

[Justaboy]

I have some rented houses and one of them was supposed to be vacated on the 31st of the month. Went there on the 3rd of the following month in the evening went in and right into the ground floor bedroom and then found one of the previous residents in there with his girlfriend going at it hammer and tongs!, bloody embarrassing so gave them a few minutes to get dressed and decent then the punchline?.

He was really annoyed that I came in whilst he was shagging his girlfriend and he thought that as he'd lived there for some years we wouldn't mind him staying a few days more!.

Almost picked him up bodily and chucked the twat out!

[Babelange]

We told our agent (but probably forgot to speak to the solicitor) that we wanted to complete at 3.00pm; I had been packing for weeks (months?) but DH waited a week before the move and then got the norovirus and was vomiting non-stop for a week. We had a removal company with a team of 8 men - lived in a narrow cul de sac so were putting things in containers which were left at their depot, return and repeat. It was horrendous - with 2 School age children. Our buyers rocked up at 12.00. They had to wait at least 3 hours as we planned (we did leave them a bottle of cava). They had only a transit van; I am not sure how they thought that we would we able to all simultaneously move out by 12 (we were in a chain). I think we filled 4 containers and you can't really be in two places at the same time ie. packing and unpacking.

[bluebump]

The people we bought from took nearly 6 months to find somewhere to buy after they'd accepted our offer, we only held on because prices were going up so much we wouldn't have been able to buy.

When we finally exchanged at last we got the keys and turned up only to find them not remotely ready to move and ferrying all the nice shrubs and plants from the garden into their car that had been one of the big selling points in the estate agents listings!

Luckily we weren't moving until the next day which is when we found the big burn mark in the lounge carpet that they'd hidden from us when we'd viewed the house.

I hope I don't have to move again any time soon!

[Glomerulus]

Oh god my blood pressure is rocketing with this... We had similar with our last house move, turned up to find the owners trying to self-move to save money on removal vans, we ended up having to move their stuff (and pets!) out onto the drive so we could get in and clean up all the shit they left behind. They were just oblivious to the concept that they didn't own the house any more, even though they had completed on their new property hours earlier.

I've heard of this happening loads, and unfortunately there's very little you can do about it legally. I've told DH that we're never moving again, or certainly not within a chain.

for you OP, it's stressful enough moving without this twattery!

[IamtheZombie]

When Zombie and her late DH bought this house completion was on 29 December. At the time a lot of solicitors' offices pretty much shut down between Christmas and New Year. The vendors' solicitor had gone into the office solely to complete the purchase. Our solicitor was DSIL and she did her bit of sending the balance of the purchase price and receiving confirmation of receipt from the vendors' solicitor from home still in her jimjams and dressing gown.

We weren't planning to fully move in (this was initially a second home bought as our forever retirement home and it needed a lot of work) but we would be spending part of every week there. As Zombie likes her creature comforts, we were having twin beds delivered on completion day so that the camping out for a few months while the much needed work was done wasn't spent in sleeping bags on the floor.

Once completion was confirmed, we headed off from DSIL's house to our new home. We arrived to find a moving van blocking access to the house.

Yep. The vendors hadn't done one single thing to prepare for the move. The movers were packing and loading the van. A few words were had (including where the twin beds were to be set up when they arrived) and we buggered off for a few hours. We stopped off at the shop that was delivering the beds and gave them a heads up.

Eventually (around 4.00pm) the vendors and their moving van left. We still didn't have full vacant possession as the boyfriend of the mother of the DW in the vendor couple had left a car in one of the outbuildings and they refused to let us have a key to that building for a week until he could find appropriate alternative accommodation for his MG.

We later learned that the vendors were running low on oil which ran their AGA (their only cooking option) and boiler for heating / hot water. On 27 December they had invited neighbours around for dinner. Only problem was they ran out of oil while cooking the meal.

To be fair, the following day the DH from the vendor couple called round. They had a horse in a nearby field and we had given permission for them to feed the horse from the stock in another outbuilding until it ran out. He found us eating breakfast leaning up against the kitchen counters. After breakfast Zombie and DH went out for a few hours. When we returned we found a garden bistro table and 4 chairs outside the door. There was a note from the vendors along the lines of 'we probably had more use for these than they did at the moment'.

Apologies for Zombie's verbal diarrhoea.

[Hobbes8]

I thought this was going to happen when I bought my first place. The vendor was selling privately, so no estate agent, and using the cheapest online conveyancer. He phoned me in a panic telling me his solicitor wants to exchange and he didn't know what that meant. I told him he could pick any day he liked for completion,as I was in rental, and he picked a day 4 weeks after exchange. Then with a few days to go he started calling me asking if he could stay another couple of weeks. Errrr, no. I had to get my solicitor to call his and tell him in words of one syllable that when I gave him 200K he could no longer live there.

My second and current house was empty a while before we moved in, but the vendor's ex wife was apparently fuming that she had to clear her crap out before completion. We got it sorted and moved in on time, but some time later we were trying to track her down because we were getting her parking fine letters and wanted to warn her, and we found a Facebook post calling us arseholes for daring to want to move in to an empty place.

[Devora]

Similar happened to me. It's obviously not that unusual!

[ColdTeaAgain]

Blimey how awful! 100% get the locks changed asap!

Was it a repossession or something like that? Sounds like they were just being awkward on purpose.

If you can spare the cash I would be really tempted to get a cleaning company in to do a total deep clean. Hope you get to enjoy the new house soon

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

We were moving across the UK and half way there, with the removal van also en route, we got a call from the estate agent asking if we really would be moving in after completion, and whether the sellers could stay in the house for another couple of days in our house.

[Behooven]

Similar happened to us in our last house. We turned up in the big van, keys in the door and in we went....
All the furniture, clothes, food everything still there! And it was minging. It had been lovely a few months before when we had last viewed it.

It had been a divorce and the guy was left to clear the house and hadn't bothered, he'd just taken off. It took a few angry calls shouting to get someone to come back and empty it. We can laugh now.

[PalmerViolet]

Our vendor was a shonky bastard.

We got the nod that everything was completed and the EA had the keys, so we set off on the 300+ mile trip to our new home. When we opened the front door, there was a set of keys on the doormat... odd.

Walked through to the kitchen to find that, in the time it had taken us to drive up, the vendor had removed the kitchen. He also took the brand new carpet from 2 of the bedrooms.

We had budgeted that we would be able to get a new kitchen put in after a year... so we had a year with no kitchen in the house.Amazing how much you can cook with a halogen oven, and actifry and 2 electric hobs!

[wasonthelist]

See, I don't get this. They get the call advising completion, drop the keys off to the EA, but aren't intending to/don't realise they have to move out. Really?

Did the agents have another set for viewings?

[weeonion]

Happened to us as well. I got the keys to our flat at 12pm and heads to it with the first car load of our stuff with removal van arriving at 2pm.

Went into our flat with previous owner still on bed with not a thing packed. He knew the flat was now ours but asked if he could kip there for a few days while he packed up. While he ate breakfast and had a shower I put as much of his stuff into one room as I could, rang and found him a storage facility as well as make a deal with removal firm to shift his stuff. I even packed 2 cupboards stuffed full of his porn.

He pottered around, ineffectually shifting stuff from one place to another while I flew round. He was also trying to flog me knick knacks to raise a few quid for a hotel room as he hadn't quite worked out where he was going to stay as he hadn't bought anywhere and had vague plans to head off travelling.

He kept popping round for a few weeks afterwards, bursting into tears at one point at the newly sanded floorboards. He'd always wanted it done but hadn't got round to it. I stopped letting him in but he visited the neighbours to find out what we were doing...

[TrulyTrulyTrulyOutrageous]

These are funny! We had a similar experience. The vendor changed the settlement day late in the process, we said we'd try to accommodate, we had arranged to move in 2 days after (a Friday) so my DH could have the bathroom and floors redone when we were still at the old house.

On the Friday, DH arrived ready to begin the Reno and she hadn't packed a box. Delayed our reno so we couldn't complete the bathroom before leaving the last house.

Crazy lady left all her rubbish, then threatened us with legal action....

[ATruthUniversallyAcknowledged]

Babelange - I am not sure how they thought that we would we able to all simultaneously move out by 12 (we were in a chain). I think we filled 4 containers and you can't really be in two places at the same time ie. packing and unpacking

But that's how it always works isn't it? Everyone in the chain completes at the same time. Once you've completed, you no longer own the house so you need to be out.

[GrumpyOldHorsewoman]

We moved into a rented house last year where the previous tenants had left the garage full of their stuff which was due to be collected the following week.
What actually happened was the removal lorry arrived and took most of it the following week as promised, but left some stuff behind. Then the man who had lived in our house (very sinister, strangely threatening) arrived one evening to take stock of what was left. Told DD to 'keep an eye on the electricity - it's not as economical as landlady says it is'.
Several weeks later, removal lorry No 2 comes to clear remaining stuff, somehow leaving a broken rusty wheelbarrow and plastic step behind can't imagine why.
Cue several months of threats to us as we're 'keeping their belongings' and 'have been rude to their friends' who came to collect old shit left belongings (nobody had ever even visited the house to ask for them - I maintain they were going to the wrong house), they even had the police call round .
They had also stolen all the curtains from the house and my electricity bill for the 10 months I lived there came in at over £5,000 and I'm convinced they had something to do with either sabotaging the meter (they'd left on v bad terms with the landlady) or giving a false reading to the Electric co which then impacted on my early meter readings which were WAY higher than the Electric co's estimates.
The world is full of nutters.

[differentnameforthis]

I remember doing a council exchange when I was a kid. It was a three way, we were going to an older lady's house, a mother & son to our house & older lady to mother & son's house.

Prior to moving day my parents agreed a time for the move. Hours before we were due to leave the mother & son rocked up. They insisted on waiting in the car until we had finished. All good.

Until the son needed to use the toilet. Which he did...with the door open & left a lovely (not so little) deposit in the toilet for us all to 'enjoy' in sight & in smell.

Older lady told my parents that on going in to their home, it was filthy! Toilets left in a similar state to how he used ours, bath was full of cold dirty water...plus lots of other things too. In the time between her viewing their house & moving in, they just wrecked it. Little old lady definitely got the rotten end of the deal! :(