To ask your best and worst house move stories?

[Fishface77]

I need to decide whether to move house or stay where I am.
It's the thought of moving that puts me of.
PLease give me your stories and help me decide whether a slightly bigger home is worth the angst of moving.

So many bad stories that I'll have to work myself up to actually write down. Tenants of our now hopefully forever home, only bothered to start getting their shit together when we were outside their door with a lorry load of our lifetime of possessions. They get it all together, say they're leaving us XYZ bits of shitty minging furniture, and leave. Then we enter the biggest shit hole you've ever seen (which is why it was affordable) that had greatly deteriorated since they clearly stopped making any effort once we took it. Apart from the revolting filth and junk, they'd left two cats behind!!! Cats!!! Behind!!! I had to, with a mask over my face from the filth, try and clean, and move and chuck, plus set about getting these poor cats rehomed. Absolutely been worth it though, each move has been an improvement and although the moving itself can bring me the brink of losing my shit, it soon passes and you get to enjoy whatever it is that you moved for. If you are likely to move, definitely start a thread on tips for moving. I have a fair few as we've moved a lot, and learned a bit more each time.

Mine are always awful and usually involve a gas leak.
My first home, moved in and had a bit of a housewarming. Strong smell of gas noticed, boiler was leaking. This was a brand new house.

Moved to new house, boiler condemned. Despite having had an in depth survey there were issues with the roof and loads of other problems. On moving day, discovered I couldnt get the sofa through the front door due to the angle. New next door neighbour stood on drive giving me a load of rules about parking and moaning because I had a cat.

Moved again, renting this time, new build house left beyond filthy by previous tenants. Landlord was mortified, though clearly didnt check it very well. Fridge and freezer full of rancid food, dishwasher clogged up and turds down toilet. Not quite sure how that got missed. He did offer to get a cleaner in but me and my mum cleaned it.

Moved to current house, gas leak from a fractured pipe. Spent my first night sat in the cold, gas turned off, waiting for gas man to come out and sort it. This was hotly followed by numerous plumbing issues, including hot tank overfilling and pouring through the bedroom ceiling.

I have moved 24 times in 43 years (!).
Last time was 3 years ago and hopefully the last time. Slightly bigger & better house that only needed some cosmetic work, in a better part of town. Splashed out on a removal firm who came in and packed up EVERYTHING except beds in our old house the day before the move.
Best money I ever spent.

On completion day our buyer was found to be a fraud. The whole thing fell through just as we started loading our moving van. To say I was gutted is an understatement.
When our solicitor phoned to tell us, I literally collapsed on the stairs.

Sexy you poor, poor thing- that must have been horrendous. Did you get a new buyer in the end?

DH negotiated quite hard with our vendors pre-exchange and got 50k off the asking price. Bit hard nosed but they were divorcing, house on market for a year with no offers and he felt it was overpriced. They accepted the offer.

Monty nothing nothing nothing excuses the filth and literal cr*p that your vendors left you with but I have heard horror stories from people who thought they'd 'test the waters' with the agreed purchase price in the run-up to exchange.

We thought we were super clever and organised.

We were moving from Europe to the USA so we came over 4 months before the move to do some house hunting. Bought a house in the 4 days we had whilst there and did all the paper work etc once we got back home.
Sorted!!!

We decided to ship all our household goods early - very early with the idea that it would arrive on our new doorstep a couple of days after we landed in the US. It meant living with just an air mattress and two camping chairs and eating out for a few weeks and staying with friends for the last week there but we decided it was worth it. We were very excited about finally not living in rentals and we were thrilled with our tiny farm that we had bought.

We arrived at our new home at 2 in the morning with two exhausted dogs and had to make a run to Walmart to buy yet another air mattress and some sheets so we could get some sleep.

Next day with total jet lag we were running around trying for buy a car when we got an email telling us that the ship that had all our stuff on it had caught on fire. They were not able to tell us whether our containers had perished or not. No other information.
They were CRAP! We found out more by reading news about it on the Internet.

So we had a further 3 months of waiting for our stuff in an empty house. I have a lovely pic of DH eating his dinner using a step ladder as a table.

But at least I got the entire house painted whilst it was empty and that was great. We can laugh about it now but not so much back then!

And now I have outed myself!

Tatlerer we managed to get the company we were buying from to arrange a part exchange. Still lost over £5000 though. The guy got away with it all too as we couldn't afford the solicitors fees to prosecute him.

GOOD STORY HERE OP

Heard house was on the market on Friday, saw it Saturday, offer accepted Monday.

10 weeks later moved into clean house (relatively speaking but I'm, erm, particular) with a bottle of wine and a bunch of flowers left by vendors, aided and abetted by a very nice firm of reasonably priced and slightly smelly removal men who cheerfully packed up one house and only broke one jug. They were even tolerant when my pregnant self wanted big bits of furniture moved in the new house as my original idea wasn't my finest.

We even had a decent estate agent! He did need a word to be had on a couple of occasions but generally he was great.

Top tip: don't go cheap on the conveyancing. Really poor choice.....I spent more time chasing them than anything else.

We're in here four years now - and I'm never moving. I absolutely love this house

I've thought about it so hard.
I think we need to sell then rent as it's a buyers market isn't it? And stay rented until we buy a house.
Its a long process.
There also seems to be no recourse for time wasters, people who damage a house before they leave or gazumpers!

My BIL and his family moved house before Xmas. Moving day was a Friday and they were in a chain. In his wisdom, they decided that they could move over the weekend. A few of us questioned how can he do this if completion day is a Friday and they were selling and buying on the same day. Nope he was adamant he could move their stuff (family of 4) over the weekend.
Imagine him and his wife surprise when they had to be out by lunchtime on the actual completion date. I was quite grateful we were on holiday then as I fear DH would have been dragged into helping move ASAP.