Greedy house sellers

[Strawberryshortcake40]

I'm selling my house at the mo. Am leaving things like curtain poles, curtains etc because a)they were bought to match the interior b)they won't necessarily fit elsewhere and c) I can't frankly be arsed to take them down and make good the holes and repaint areas in every room.

Stupidly I thought this was pretty much the civilised thing to do. However the house I'm buying, they are offering to sell me the poles/curtains in the house. Lounge windows (small cottage windows) - £350 a pair.... I have no recollection of what they were like but I don't remember them being hand embroidered in gold thread or anything to justify that cost! How can they even think that's okay? I declined obviously....

AIBU to think that you either leave such items or offer them for sale at a reasonable second hand price?

(Oh and on the vague off chance the vendors are reading this, I think taking out a few years old integrated appliance or offering it at £500 isnt polite either. (I can buy a new one for not much more!)

[Justaboy]

The Buying and selling of houses can and does bring out the worst in people;(

[ZigZagandDustin]

My vendors were amazing. They even filled the oil tank for us moving in out of their own pocket. I gave birth the day we got the keys so they didn't want us coming home to a cold house. We arrived with our family to clean and move in and ended up just ordering a take away as there wasn't even a dusty skirting board to wipe. The place was immaculate. They are now our neighbours and have treated us like family.

[Strawberryshortcake40]

Funny you said about the oil tank, I just filled mine last week. In theory there would just have been enough until I move out but I didn't want my buyers to run out in the first few weeks.

Maybe I should consider selling it to them?!!

[Crickettime]

We left all ceiling and wall lights, curtains and poles in our last house, to find that vendors of new house had taken everything. If we ever move again I would think more carefully about maybe taking these things after having to spend a fortune replacing everything from scratch and due to the inconvenience of living somewhere with no proper light fittings or curtains until we could get something sorted. Definitely ask for any holes etc to be filled as that might make them rethink what they take (they might be planning to take stuff you never even dreamed they would). Good luck with it all

[PurpleMinionMummy]

Haha we had the same when we bought our house. They wanted a stupid amount for curtains and poles. I said no and bought all new ones for less than they had asked. They also wanted us to pay for the shed, I wanted the shed but didn't think they'd take it so said no to that too. They didn't so we got that for free

[ICantFindAFreeNickName2]

The people we bought our house from were lovely - they knew I had just had a baby so they left a living room all set up with furniture, so I could sit and nurse ds as soon as we arrived. They even left some money & a hand knitted shawl for Ds.

[nancy75]

Years ago vendors of a house my parents bought tried to charge them extra for the door handles on the interior doors!
In comparison the lovely people that I bought my house from left all the curtains, carpets, a detailed guide to how to use all the appliances and a bottle of champagne - we were really very lucky to find them.

[C8H10N4O2]

Surely curtain poles are fixtures (and possibly the integrated appliance too)? Ask your solicitor to confirm but normally 'attached' stuff - light fittings (and bulbs), built in or attached wardrobes, shelves etc and integrated appliances should not be removed.

Curtains/carpets might be down to negotiation.

[midsomermurderess]

I know someone who bought a new shower curtain when selling her house and took it with her on moving. She got a stern solicitor’s letter demanding its return. I was self-evidently a moveable. People go a bit weird when buying /selling houses

[AlexaAmbidextra]

A friend of mine bought a house that had a greenhouse in the garden. The vendor offered to sell it to her for £1000 but she declined as had no interest in gardening. She arrived on moving in day to find said greenhouse still in the garden but smashed to pieces.

[iggleypiggly]

We had this exact issue.. we generally leave most things... curtains, poles etc. The people we were buying from wanted stupid amounts for curtains and poles (were about 20 years old and vile) the oven which was about 30 years old, the shed... yes they were going to remove an old falling down shed, they also wanted us to pay for the logs they were leaving in the garage... the list was endless, we said remove it all that’s no problem. The boiler was then condemned and they offered us £100 towards it . It got so painful that we ended up pulling out!

[caoraich]

They may well be chancing it - friends of mine had their vendors try to sell them the (enormous, no idea how they got them in the rooms) wardrobes, curtains, poles etc. They politely declined and said the vendors were welcome to take them. It was all still there when they moved in.

We made a big mistake with our house. When we viewed it, there were hideous chandeliers (totally inappropriate for the property) in every room and we weren't looking forward to replacing them. All light fittings were listed on the particulars. Solicitor got in touch after the offer had been accepted asking if it would be OK for vendors to take the chandeliers if they replaced them with regular light fittings - we responded with "yessssss one less job for us"!

They left a single chandelier at the top of the stairs, too high to remove properly. A friend of ours who works in interior design visited and commented on it - "bloody hell, I sell those things for £500 a pop!"

We had no idea, just thought they were tat. If we'd refused we could have sold the other six and paid for the replacement driveway we had to put in! Still raging about our naivety there.

[Strawberryshortcake40]

Yes they've offered to sell me the logs too....

[ninjapants]

I thought you had to leave things like curtain poles (not curtains though), blinds and integrated appliances as they are 'fixtures and fittings', unless agreed otherwise? When we moved that sort of thing was included in the legal documents, seemingly as standard. These could be altered though, for example we took the shed (it was new and we had never agreed with the ea to include it) and included the dishwasher and cooker in the sale (fitted appliances in our new home). I still feel guilty about taking the living room curtains though (not included in the sale, I left the pole and the blinds) as I've never used them since.

[Strawberryshortcake40]

No there is a section on the form for curtain poles where you can exclude them. So they are fine to do so. Just in a way I would rather they just took them rather than offering them for me to buy.

[iggleypiggly]

Wow strawberry that’s so funny!!! Seriously these people... best thing was ours were downsizing to a flat that had no fire/logburner or a garden!

[ninjapants]

Curtain poles were definitely considered a 'fixture', by our solicitor at least. If they weren't we may have considered taking them and some light fittings because we had to buy them for every room in our new home (a new build)

[LapdanceShoeshine]

I don't know if it's relevant, but when I was taking to a home insurer & asked what was covered by contents & what by buildings, he said if you turned the house upside down & shook it everything that didn't fall out was buildings. (So, logically, integrated appliances should go with the house.)

When we bought ours - 30+ years ago - they offered to sell us some hideous light fittings. We didn't want them, so they removed them, but did replace with ordinary lampholders (with bulbs in!)

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

Buying and selling brings out the worst in people. Our vendor for this house wanted to us to buy the bloody fireplaces and aga! Funnily enough he left them attached where they should be.

He also left a loft full of crap (and actually a few toys we were able to sell for a nice amount which we have to our church), a kitchen full of shopping bags and finned green beans and bitched about us to everyone on our street for being "a nightmare to deal with". Our only contact with him was declining to buy the fireplaces and aga! We completed in 6-7 weeks from first viewing, so goodness knows how we were a nightmare.

[BackforGood]

It's not greedy, it's just something that has changed in recent years. Most people don't move house that frequently, so would naturally assume they take things with them or sell them to the person buying.
I brought quite a lot of stuff like that with me when I moved house last, because I'd spent a lot of money on some things, that I could use in my next home. They aren't part of the fabric of the building, so you aren't buying them as a part of the house (well, except the integrated appliances - I'd say they were).
It doesn't really matter either way - if everyone is moving towards a culture of leaving things, then it is swings and roundabouts, but in the case of many houses I've looked at, I'd rather pay to have my taste in curtains altered, or my carpets refitted, than live with the vendors taste.
It's hardly shocking , ridiculous or greedy though.

[UtterlyRainbowed]

When myself and the ex bought our house the sellers replaced the carpet in the smallest bedroom as their dog spent a lot of time in their. They also left the curtains and poles. However, they lied about the bitch next door being lovely so swings and roundabouts.

[SlobSister]

Bought a house 2O years ago and the sellers took everything, including the plaque on the front door with the house number on it.

[1DAD2KIDS]

Free market. Sell what you think you want from them. But what you want to pay

[caoraich]

Slobsister that's bizarre! What are the chances they were moving to the same number elsewhere?

I've also just remembered- our vendors took the wheelie bins!
There are four and you have to pay for the non-recycling one so fair enough, but now they live somewhere - presumably in the same council area as us- with double the bin capacity! Sneaky buggers. Thank god our neighbours were nice and let us use their bins for the first few weeks.

[SlobSister]

caoraich, IKR ? ! They were divorcing and I thnk ‘Mr’ was determined to get as much as he could from the house.