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!)

[buttfacedmiscreant]

Some company should come up with an escrow scheme (call it a "Home buyers warranty" or something) that sellers can offer buyers for an extra amount. They could hold back five thousand or something until the buyers have walked through and confirmed everything is there and as expected.

I bet plenty of buyers would be willing to pay for a service like that and if it were popular enough it would seperate good sellers from bad. Only honorable sellers would be interested in something like that.

[SylviaTietjens]

The people we bought our current house from absolutely hated us. The house had been up for sale for years at a ridiculous price. We made an offer for what we thought it was worth (170k less than asking price). They accepted but we’re not happy about it. We moved in to find they’d taken all the door handles off and poured a big puddle of paint in the middle of every carpet.

No matter how important the letters that arrived for them looked it was very satisfying to throw them in the fire. Yes, I’m as bad as them .

[wasonthelist]

The few times I've had this I called the seller's bluff by politely declining to pay anything at all for fixtures and fittings - 90% of the time they have left the items anyway.

[tdm1]

We bought a house from someone who, a week after the completion, called to ask if she could come and get the doorbell (cheap and plastic) and the smoke alarms (again, cheap and plastic)!!! I sighed and said yes.

[Enwi]

How bloody annoying. Our sellers tried to sell us a desk in the upstairs bedroom.... for £200. It was a big corner desk, but of absolutely no use to us.
Queue us moving in 1 week later to find it there. We rang solicitor and asked if it could be removed as it wasn’t part of the original house purchase and we had declined their offer to keep it. Sellers said they couldn’t get the desk out of the room without dismantling it, which they didn’t have time to do. Solicitor informed them they needed to come and get it or they risked being charged the cost of us paying someone to come and remove it.
Chancers

[Mollieben]

We are having the same op. We've been offered the 4 year old FITTED oven and grill for £1000!!! Um no thanks - we have proved one up at £350 brand new... Its money grabbing

[wasonthelist]

furniture pyre

[whiskyowl]

I HATE people like this. Mean, mean, mean.

They always find some hideously hypocritical way of justifying it, too. I've had "I've got the kids to think about" as an excuse.

[morningconstitutional2017]

It never ceases to amaze me how ghastly some people behave where property is concerned. I've moved house five times and could tell you a few stories and so could many others.
These greedy types could end up shooting themselves in the foot though and frankly that thought has been the only thing that has kept me sane during some of my moves.
Best of luck though, you'll need it with some of these specimens.

[opinionatedfreak]

The curtains / blinds in my living room cost a fortune (>£1500). Made to measure in expensive fabric.

So don't be so hasty about dismissing them as chancers.

Integrated appliances though should be left - but you can remove standard under the worktop appliances. My brother just got burned with this had to buy a washing machine/ tumble dryer and fridge freezer because they had assumed they would all be left. Oops.

[coddiwomple]

I thought that was pretty standard? All these things are always separate on the fixture and fittings, and sellers either take them or sell them?

I know you have to be extra careful carpets, door handles etc.. are written down on the form. I have no idea what people do with them, but sometimes they do disappear.

I think it also depends on the sale. If people sell too low below the asking price, they are much less generous. You can't really blame them. I'd rather buy everything new anyway, when you see the amount of the mortgages nowadays, it makes no difference to add a couple of white goods that you know are clean, new and reliable!

[Gumbo]

Years ago we tried to buy somewhere where the owners had recently put in a fully-fitted bright pink shag-pile carpet. Throughout the entire house. It was both eye-wateringly expensive and indescribably hideous.

They said that for £1000 they'd leave it behind for us!!! They were very offended when we declined and told them that we'd pay them to take it with them

They got more and more ridiculous about other similar things and we eventually pulled out...

[kungfupannda]

Another story of a vendor stripping everything out. My parents managed to be in the middle of a house move when I was born. They brought me home from the hospital and straight into the new house to find that the seller had ripped all the kitchen units off the walls, along with the work tops, unscrewed every light switch panel, removed the plug sockets, pulled up the carpets, underlay and bits across the doors (not sure what you call them) and taken every lightbulb out.

I'm told it was a fun time...

[kungfupannda]

Oh yes, and the plastic slide curtain rail things. And the doorbell.

[kungfupannda]

And the plants from the garden. I keep remembering bits of the story!

[Tigger180]

We’re hoping to buy a house soon and was mentioning some of these to my partner, as a few are particularly petty (door handles!!), he said it reminded him of the film ‘Moving’ starring Richard Pryor - specifically this bit 😁

[Strawberryshortcake40]

I do know curtains can be very expensive if they are made to exact specifications. But I think they are a very personal thing and if they will fit your new house and you love them, then just exclude them from the sale? It's unlikely that someone else is going to want to spend a lot of money on curtains they didn't choose themselves? Thankfully my curtains/blinds weren't very expensive but they all fit the rooms they are in, size and decor wise, so they are all staying. As are quite a few bits of furniture (that my buyers want!). Which reminds me I must get on with selling the rest of it!

[BewareOfDragons]

In this day and age of being able to transfer money from anywhere with a computer/smart phone, I think that a new system should come in:

Buyers should go to the house about 30 minutes for money transfer is due and do a final walk through with the Sellers or Sellers' solicitor or EA. If the property and fixings/fixtures/agreed contents are not as agreed, then the money isn't transferred until it's fixed. When it's to everyone's satisfaction, Sellers hand over the keys and leave; Buyers push 'pay'.

Or Escrow like in the states: money is held back with a 3rd licensed party until everyone is happy.

[coddiwomple]

BewareOfDragons

I get your point, but can you imagine being stuck in a long chain with problems at the top and delays on completion day? It's bad enough to buy a house in this country, let's not make it even more difficult!

Being very clear about fixtures and fittings, and not hesitating to pursue the vendor is a more practical solution. Not ideal, but nothing is.

[Bluntness100]

It is bonkers how crazy and money grabbing people get. The level of pettiness is shocking. I’ve had five houses. I always leave appliances and curtains, curtain poles, light fittings, carpets etc. At no stage would they have fitted or even suited the new property.

Folks just don’t see it as something that’s win win. They view it as every man for themselves. We’ve also had bulbs removed , no loo roll in th house, taking the scraps, and we had a wood burner taken too which was down to be left.

We had one buyer who just kept asking for more and more. I’m quite flexible and easy going and like to meet folks in the middle, but it was like she thought she was buying a new build and wanted a hundred year old property made to new so she’d never have any expense ever. Things that were not needing doing and down in the survey as fine for at least ten years she asked for renewing,

Eventually both myself and the estate agent had enough, he called me up and apologised and said she wants x now. I said, yeah that’s enough, tell her we’ve pulled out and put it back on the market. He said I agree, this is crazy. Strangely enough, she then with drew the latest request, made no more requests and went to completion like a little lamb.

People are total chancers, will abuse your good will and take you for every penny they possibly can given a sniff of an opportunity, it’s appaling. I’d rather lose a little money and maybe be a mug, than fuck over a stranger and be a complete and utter .....I just can’t understand why you have to be either though, why some folks make it like this.

I mean, taking thr fitted carpets, burning furniture rather than let someone have it for free, digging up plants from the garden. Just awful.

[coddiwomple]

When you see the prices in my area, you can understand why people are not willing to give anything for free. They can't afford it!

I am not saying I would remove carpets and dig plants, and I think removing lightbulbs is just rude, but I can understand why people would sell furniture and white goods on ebay or other before moving. A few hundred quid will make a huge difference for some people.

[grannytomine]

The curtains and poles happened to us, we declined. They left them anyway.

[YogaDrone]

I thought of you when I saw this thread Mollieben!

We're selling now and all bespoke fitted blinds are staying but the two pairs of curtains (both of which match bedroom linen) are coming with us. The rooms still have blinds so we're not leaving them bare.

We're taking our dishwasher - it's only 6 months old and cost £600 but it's not integrated so a buyer presumably wouldn't expect it to be left. The integrated appliances like fridge, cooker, hob, extractor fan are obviously staying. We've also offered (no cost) our breakfast table and chairs and garden table and chairs to our purchaser and they have accepted them. But if they had said they didn't want them I'd take them with us, I wouldn't just leave them for the purchaser to deal with.

We're also in the process of taking down TV and speaker brackets and making good - again I wouldn't leave big holes in the wall, that's unacceptable.

[SomewhatIdiosyncratic]

DH had a saga with his first house. His first offer was accepted, then he was gazumped. They then pulled out. He then put in a slightly lower offer to avoid the stamp duty threshold. They grudgingly accepted as they were getting desperate to move. He moved in to find that they'd vengfully removed little things like light bulbs and original 80s plastic loo roll holders.