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.

I can't understand how people can leave dirty houses.

When we moved, I was 7 months pg (always seem to move when pregnant). I was up at 4am cleaning all the kitchen cupboards and washing the floors. I wrote a note listing the bin men days, parking restrictions, and the quirks of the house, hoped they would be happy in their new home and put a bottle of wine in the fridge. It is manners.

This happened when we moved into a rental. Previous tenants were friends with the landlord but hadn't been keeping up to date with the rent. I don't think they actually thought he'd really get new tenants, so hadn't really been looking for anywhere else.

They packed up as much as they could, left a load of horse riding equipment in the garden saying they'd come back for it later, and said anything else they didn't want and we could keep bin .

Most of it was rubbish that went to the tip but we did get a set of twelve lovely wine glasses. And a piano.

OP- I hope you've had a good night's sleep and are feeling more like it's your home - what a horrible start!

I echo the others suggestion of getting the locks changed today, if it's a yale it's relatively easy to change the barrel yourself.

And I know you've done nothing but pack for days, but I would start packing up as much of their stuff that's left as you can and get it boxed ready to hand to them at the door (don'tmake decisions about what's crap and whats to keep, box it all), so you don't have to let them back in.

Wow, some of these stories are shocking!

We got off relatively lightly - we'd completed and went to pick up the keys at 11am, only to be told that the keys weren't there as the previous owners were still moving out! Fortunately they were done in a couple of hours and we had the keys by 2pm - I felt a bit sorry for them, as the owner was an elderly lady who had lived in the house since it was built in the 50s, who lived with her son who had presumably been raised in the house. There was probably a lot of memories there for them!

We were also relatively lucky in that we'd moved from a rental property, do didn't have much in the way of furniture - we'd just hired a transit van for a couple of days (as we were planning on getting furniture once we moved in), so weren't holding up any removal company.

I was still a bit annoyed at the time, having read this read I feel positively blessed!

I moved into a lovely cottage, sold to us by a local senior Policeman.

He'd left stepladders, 3 bin liners of rubbish and a pile of McDonald's cartons (some with half eaten burgers in them) in the middle of the lounge floor. He'd also left the gun cupboard and some bullets upstairs in a cupboard. Dirty, irresponsible man.

He had to call at our house around 3 months later with a colleague re a local incident. I gave him the bullets back. I hope he got into trouble.

His wife was a fishwife too. She upbraided me in a playpark, in front of our children, over some delay in the buying process, 5 years later - loon. Left me in tears though. Vile vile people.

The previous house was really sad. The parents had both died. The bank had sold the house to us. The daughter (around 19?) came to the house very distressed saying we 'had her home' now, the day we moved in. We called our lawyers to double check everything correct and they told us to call the Police on her. Actually gave her a hankie and a cup of tea - she was not 'mad or bad' (their words) but terribly sad. Awful.

OP, sorry you've had this. It can really 'take the shine' off a new home.

Something similar happened to us!

DH had casually to the previous owners as we were renting we would be spending the night of the completion at the rented house as we could...but we had to move all the things out of the house we'd sold on completion day...the sellers were aware there was a chain....there we were with our van if things wanting to unpack, waiting for them to pack their stuff. Awkward.

We had it too, our removal men helped them moved their stuff out out of pity for us. We eventually got in at midnight and stayed awake until 6am cleaning the disgusting and I don't exactly have high standards! place

Congrats on your new home

We had it too, our removal men helped them moved their stuff out out of pity for us. We eventually got in at midnight and stayed awake until 6am cleaning the disgusting and I don't exactly have high standards! place

Congrats on your new home

I have had similar happen. We were moving in to a 5 bedroom house and the previous owners were moving in to a 2 bedroom flat. We arrived at the house at 12pm as arranged, ready to move out stuff in. Only to find they were still packing. We waited another three hours, including them stopping to eat mcdonalds that somebody had brought over for them. Eventually they came out of the house, handed us the spare key and said "we will be back for the rest" By the rest they meant all their beds (3 doubles, 2 singles), a whole sofa suite (2x 3 seaters and 1x 2 seater), all their white goods and loads of other furniture.

We presumed they meant they'll be back the same day, so we start unloading our stuff into two rooms as there wasn't room for our beds etc in the bedrooms, our white goods in the kitchen etc.

Eventually 8pm comes and we're thinking, they aren't going be back are they. At 11pm we made up our beds the best we could downstairs. At 2am there was a knock at the door. They'd come back for the rest of their stuff. Yes, at 2am. My husband told them in no uncertain terms to get lost.

Three days later they turned up again. By this point my husband had taken down all their beds, moved their sofas and white goods etc into the garage and ours were all in place. They were angry with us for moving their stuff into the garage, said if it was ruined we would be paying!!!

It took them another 4 hours to fill up their van. Not everything was gone. Again, they said they'll be back. Yep, another 5 days later. Another van load, still some stuff left. In the end we got the police involved and were told anything that was on our property belonged to us. When they turned up again a week later they were very surprised to see the garage was empty. We sold the rest of their stuff (apart from the sofas which I'm currently sat on...!). I did feel guilty about it but they were really taking the piss.

This happened to my parents in the 70's. Bought a house and turned up with loaded lorry and 4DCs to find the wife insitu with her DCs. It turned out that her 'D'H had sold the house without informing his Dw .

The poor woman was distraught, my parents' solicitor was very good but we still had to move into my parents' friend's flat for over a week so 9 people and two sets on belongings in a 2 bedroomed flat - I can still remember sleeping in a room with filled with boxes stacked up to the ceiling. Can't imagine the stress my parents must have been under as they had 4DCs aged under six at the time.

You just couldn't make it up.

We've moved quite a few times, within the same area.
Our solicitor (a family friend) has always insisted one of us went round to the new house, before the completion happened, to make sure the people were actually moving out.

I always thought he was being a bit over zealous but reading this thread, I'm glad he did.

Blimey!
When we bought our house we got the call for the keys and off we popped to collect them and went straight to the new house. It was literally a 3 min walk from PIL where we were living, to our first bought home. We opened the door to find all the floors ripped up, bedrooms filled with crap, holes in the walls, all the internal doors replaced with shit unsightly ones that didn't fit correctly so didn't shut! The oven and hob removed from the kitchen and thrown in the back garden along with a huge pile of rubbish I just wanted to give the keys back as this was not the house we viewed. We had plans to totally redecorate, new kitchen, new bathroom Etc but not immediately, we just planned to decorate at first and carpet and do bathroom/kitchen when money allowed. We mainly wanted DS then aged 1 a lovely comfortable bedroom.
We spent an extra 6 weeks at PIL while we stripped the walls and finally the smokey smell left, such a relief, it was infused into the wallpaper. We did the kitchen (cupboards, worktops,appliances) in those 6weeks too and added lovely floor/tiles over time. This year, 5 years later, we finally did the bathroom and it's beautiful
Back on completion day while we were assessing the damage we glimpsed a gentleman and young boy in the back garden accompanied with wheelbarrows taking all of the pot plants and when confronted they said she hadn't had time to collect then, we not so politely told asked him to get the woman who lived here back right now to clean the shithole up.
While this was going on the next door but one neighbour said hi and we were telling him what a shit hole it was and what a dirty cow she was etc when next door to him a lady pops her head over the fence to say "oh yeh sorry about the state, my SISTER who we'd just been slating just wanted to get her ex into some kind of trouble with solicitors/EAs"
Apparently they'd split but the H had had to keep her and kids in the house until kids were certain age and now he was selling and she wasn't bloody happy! I don't know why she thought doing what she did would work though as she just inconvenienced us as a family.
I loved the look on her face though when she came to collect post a while later and said "it looks sooo different!" Yes, I said, it's clean!
We still get her bloody post 5 years later

Sorry to everyone with similar stories

Omg to these stories.

Not always the vendors who are strange. I remember selling my house. The day before completion while I was doing the last of the packing up, the new owners rocked up to do various measurements and were talking about where they were going to put their furniture. They also had a few deliveries arrive. They were totally getting in my way. Then the following morning at 7am they rocked up again and just stood there watching me pack the last boxes into the van and doing the last bit of cleaning. I told them to piss off in the end until I'd handed in the keys at 2pm as arranged. They were the most piss taking rude buyers ever and I had to tip toe round them for months so it felt great to finally tell them to do one. Looking back they were probably just excited.

Not quite the same as we were renting - our 'best friends' were buying and highly recommended their rental house, said it was great, as was the landlord...

My husband went to help them move out, they had not packed anything into boxes or hired a van for a large detached house, they let there 10 year old wander around getting in everyone's way but not helping.

We went back to move in and they had left furniture 'they they thought we might want' in the sitting room, big pieces that I had already politely declined several times. The garage was full of stuff that they were never clear whether they wanted or not (even after we moved out a yr later!) The oven was really dirty, there was dust everywhere and there was green mould in the shower, a lot of it... They claimed to have had it professionally cleaned but this was just clearly not true. We had to get the landlord out as they had painted 1 room (eventually our 2 yr old daughters) dark purple, really badly painted it, there was paint everywhere it was messy and depressing - they had been told to turn it to its original state on leaving and seemed put out when we demanded to the landlord that he fix it to something more neutral and less satanic (he obviously charged them).

Over the year we lived there it was evident the oil meter was not working correctly, the heating in the kitchen and bathroom didn't work, there was a very significant problem with mould and small beatle/scorpion-type creatures living somewhere in the house, the landlord was appalling as we're the letting agents and we're spectacularly unhelpful and hard to get hold of.

May sound petty but I have never forgiven my 'best' friend, it's completly soured our relationship... I don't know why they lied about so much stuff or what was in it for them to have us move in. I had a 2yr old and was 6 months pregnant when we moved in, I had a tiny baby in a freezing cold mouldy house. I think I'm more appalled that they left it in that state knowing their friends were moving in!

Reading some of these posts is astonishing, the stupidity and lack of respect of some people!

Unbelievable how many people this happens to!

Exactly the same happened to my sister - arrived with the keys, vendors just sitting in the lounge with a houseful of stuff, nothing packed. BIL ended up moving them out, and had to be very firm.

We had the experience of turning up with the keys, to find vendors still manically trying to pack up - and a garage still choc-full of stuff. The wife had a panic attack of some sort and just disappeared for 2hrs (apparently sitting in her car in a supermarket carpark or something!) and the vendor's mother was saying to us "oh, do you want to move in today?" We were like "Er, YES! We've sold our house, and have 2 removal vans full of our furniture!"

At about 4pm our removal guys just started unloading our stuff around them - and took the second van back to depot and agreed to unload at 7am the following Monday. We then had a weekend of the vendors painstakingly emptying the garage into a 4x4 with trailer - it was agonising. Our removal company were so good, they didn't charge us any extra - which was a relief, because although I know you can sue for expenses, we really could do without the hassle.

I would have never believed it was so common either.

We completed at 12 and arrived at 5:30 to our vendors still moving out! I think it may needs to be made crystal clear that completion day/time is the cut off you have to be out!

Luckily we hadn't planned to move till several days after but still even as a ftb I felt increasingly annoyed with the vendors! Plus it was filthy too!

Haha, this has really cheered me up this morning. The bare faced cheek of some people

Wow it's clearly very common.

Does seem like the solicitors have to be crystal clear to ensure that incredibly thick people understand that once completion takes place the owners are no longer the owners have to GET THE HELL OUT!

It's really low the amount of people who take carpets, light bulbs and even kitchen units with them!

We turned up to our house with the keys. The owners were still moving everything in the van which took quite a few trips. They were only moving down the road but we sat waiting in the car for a couple of hours. When I entered the house, everything and everywhere was spotless. The owners got their mum in to clean while they moved their stuff. It was thoughtful of them, although they should packed up a bit early. Luckily the removeral people didn't charge us extra for waiting.

How horrible! Hope today is a better day

IL had estate agent friend who signed a few forms for us - she said it was incredibly common and they had policy of being very clear with people but it still happened.

We had to sign form for both estate agents and both solicitors saying we'd be out day or exchange for last house. Seemed excessive to us - though weren't great at actually giving us dates to arrange things to assure this.

We've had the opposite people moved out weeks before - one forgot to hand keys and was uncontactable on day of exchange and another the estate agents misplace keys for a few hours. In both cases they left huge amount of rubbish and both tried to stuff us for the utilities for weeks they weren't there but we didn't own the property. Neither did redirects so we've spent years getting their post and having to hand in or send back.

Last people did leave some nice bits of furniture and despite rubbish place was clean which was a vast improvement on first house we bought.

It really puts me of moving just adds to all the stress involved.

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

Really? OF COURSE YOU ALL SHOULD MOVE OUT BY 12 (or whenever completion occurs)!!!! How on earth do people not know this? maybe they shouldn't be allowed to take out mortgages/buy houses if it needs explaining.

Despite texting me every hour on completion day to ask if it had happened yet , when we did complete and got round to the house, the previous owners were only half packed. They suggested we go and wait in the cafe down the road - DH pointed out that we were paying our removal men by the hour and anyway the house was legally ours. They finally finished packing and fucked off six hours later. They did leave the garden furniture behind though which was good (I think they finally noticed the increasingly murderous expressions on our faces).

At least they were getting ready to leave though! What kind of idiot thinks they can just leave whenever they want even though it's not their house any more?!