We moved house a few months ago. After years of living in a small 2 bed house that needed far more work doing to it than we wanted to do we finally managed to move into our dream home.
From accepting an offer on our house and completing the process took 11 months. Only a few people in the chain but a new build house involved at the end of it.
When we received the fixtures and fittings form, the sellers of our new house wanted what we felt was an an awful lot of money for items to be left in the house (e.g £1000 for one particular kitchen item that they claimed was worth £3000 and was only a year old, but couldn't produce any paperwork to prove this, and when I googled it the said item was currently valued at £1500)
We were willing to negotiate so through solicitors went back with reasonable offers (or what we deemed to be reasonable) as moving with a small child we didn't really have loads of money and it would be easier if the items could be left rather than having the hassle of replacing them. Every offer we made was declined, stating they only wanted the original value stated.
The closer we got to the point of exchange, we decided that they could take the items and we would get our own. Just before we told the solicitor this, the sellers solicitor emailed ours to say that his sellers had agreed to leave the disputed items free of charge. I asked for written confirmation that all of the items would be left and i wanted it itemised as to what was being left, which their solicitor provided. We exchanged contracts in this basis.
Unfortunately it was 4 months between exchange and completion. On arriving at the house on completion day we discovered that all of the items that we had been told were being left had been removed, and not subtlety. They had literally been ripped out of the house, live wires had been left everywhere, holes where screws had just been pulled out and the house was generally in a right mess.
We immediately called our solicitors who contacted the sellers solicitor who have admitted that they must have mis understood their clients instructions as they actually had no intention of leaving anything. They then tried to deny ever sending an email with the listing of items however both myself and our solicitor had copies readily available.
We have had to replace all of the items at a cost to us of around £5000, plus repair works and not to mention the faulty wiring that we then found out that has seen half of the house having to be redone. We were advised by our solicitor that we should be able to claim the costs for the missing items back from the other party as they had categorically stated that these items were to be left.
It is now 4 months later and we have been going back and forth between solicitors and they are refusing to pay anything, stating that it is not their fault they misunderstood what their clients meant even though they sent 2 emails confirming what items we should expect to find when we moved in. we now have 2 choices - leave it and just accept the fact and chalk it up to experience, or take them to small claims court.
So I guess my question is - does anyone think we would get anywhere if we took them to court? I don't want to have to go down that route if I'm going to end up paying out more than we already have and not get anything back as a result!
sorry for the essay!