Moved in yday, filthy house, took everything, raging!

[Mimmi78]

Don't post a lot, but am awake on a mattress on the floor of my new family home at 5 am, just raging/worries & generally cluttered mind! Completed yesterday
It's taken a year, mostly due to the sellers, they were slow, didn't produce paperwork and refused to have direct contact with their own agent! Then insisted dates etc were all convenient for them & no one else in the chain (4 property)
AIBU, when I walked through the door, I felt a surge of foreboding followed by disappointment. It's filthy. Not just a dust & vacuum required, I mean, never cleaned the shower, windows, vacuumed since showing the property! We asked to view again prior to exchange, they let us eventually, but insisted on not being there and I thought then, this needs cleaning. I asked solicitor to ensure it stated this, he said it always does. There was rabbit pop in the kitchen sink, their bodge a job removers had trailed the whole outside inside (& were there 2hrs after completion as was the owner, who refused to acknowledge us!) they had taken every single lightbulb and ceiling rose (this is a breach of our sale contract!), every pole, not even a big roll, just filth, piles of it, everywhere!! I'm furious, my sold property was left immaculate, little notebook with useful info and a welcome basket. The sellers have only moved a couple of streets away, wibu to trash & discuss their filth with new neighbours, who will no doubt know them and if I see them, call them filthy animals???? Make me feel better so I can get on and make this house a home for DD1 (7) & DS1 (5) who arrive today. Thank you

Sympathies OP. I had exactly this earlier this year. My first house, and I was going through a hell of a time anyway. I haven't been able to move in yet as I need to look after my disabled mum for the next 6 months, but I've already had the "home installed" bathroom ripped out & waiting for new one.
Next ŵill be more cleaning, then painting, then replacing carpet in the living room as they carpeted AROUND furniture so there's huge gaps!
It will get there, but there was a lot of tears when I first picked up the keys (alone cos i'd just lost my dad in horrific circumstances).
Some people are just really shitty.

Some real horror stories on here!
I remember my mom telling me about a house she moved to in the 1960’s. It was a filthy hovel apparently, and my dear old nan always wanted to say something positive in bad situations. All she could manage on this occasion was “well. That’s a lovely bit of glass in that window frame.” 😁

Take pics and go through the solicitor. When we moved in they’d left load of stuff so we had to hire a skip and place was filthy and ant infestation so billed them and got money back for a clean, pest control and skip back.

Sympathies OP

If it's a lot of money, go through solicitors, but be aware that solicitors obviously charge you for their time, and this sort of thing can be a real mine field and might end up costing you more....

If you can afford a professional deep clean, take the DC out for the day so you can get that done. It'll take forever otherwise. Remember this is just a short delay in you getting your lovely family home, it'll be ready for you soon!

We had a difficult move with all parties being annoyed at various points. However our house was immaculate when we moved in, and the one we sold was cleaned by our lovely ex cleaner who worked around the removers. If you have the money I would hand it over to your solicitor to sort out and put it behind you.
💐

Horrible to move into a house and find it in such a terrible state. Some people are such filthy beggars. I would advise as previous posters have done that you take photos and send to your solicitors. I would also be booking a deep cleaning company and billing the vendors. If they refuse to pay then small claims court.

I don't think you can specify the cleanliness of your new house. It's not a rental.
If they have taken things that are on the seller's questionnaire, they need to pay for them.

I think people forget that exchange and complete means the house is not yours anymore!

We moved in with a five month old and they tried to make us feel grateful for being allowed to sit in our lounge after completion time while they took their time getting out. They took stuff they were meant to leave, left things crap they were meant to take, we found at least one drawer and one cupboard full of stuff, nine bags of rubbish, they didn't have all their post redirected for months and months and then her relative turned up to get something they'd forgotten and was annoyed I didn't let him look around . I saw his sneaky nosey in the lounge and that annoyed me enough.

When we bought our first house the ever so posh (both Head teachers) owners took everything , including ceiling roses and lightbulbs , plants etc , but strangely , left their cat....
we telephoned our solicitor with all the details , he got in touch with the sellers at their new house , luckily only a mile away , and told them that unless they immediately returned all the things that they had taken in breach of contract he would void the sale and sue,
they came back , very shame faced and did the work..but still managed to miss the cat ...so we put it in a box and took it to them ourselves..they were a really odd couple!
Call your solicitor.

Mean and greedy
Hope you soon have it how you want it

Feeling for you today , it's a horrid position to begin but you will soon get it cleaned and shining

Much the same happened to me last year , supposedly a very quick sale we were a cash buyer, her older lady going into a new build , I looked mid Feb and agreed a price on that one view , took DP and builder friend to look end of Feb and completed 30th June ( my money sat around in solicitors client account from April as she originally wanted to complete sometime early April

I honestly don't think she did any cleaning , housework , gardening etc from our second view ,
Ok I know with my builder & I discussed major internal alterations but we discussed them quietly and not in her presence as I hate offending someone who loves their house and she had owned it for over 15 years from new ( she was talking to the agent outside ) and even so she wasn't to know that we would do them immediately or even do them at all, it wasn't grubby it was filthy and with a deep ingrained smell that didn't go until we removed several major sections of floor

I disagree that all homes are filthy when you move in! I gave my previous home a thorough clean after the movers had been. Our current house was also lovely when we moved in.

Some people are just savages though. A previous vendor also took all the lovely light fittings, bulbs and even the tiles from the downstairs loo! Had we not caught them, they would have removed the banister rails to get their bed out. Needless to say, it need a good clean too.

Unless there's serious damage, it's not worth pursuing. Just give it the best clean you can and chalk it down to experience. Hopefully, you won't be moving again anytime soon.

When I was little, my dad dug up several plants and a large beautiful flowering bush and took them with us wen we moved out. I remember my mother arguing with him about it, she was mortified. He said they 'didn't look like gardeners' so they'd just ruin the garden anyway

The bush and most of the plants died after being moved, anyway. Served him right, my mother said.

It's annoying but even if the house looked clean I would still scrub it after moving in. When we moved into our home it was very grubby and needed a deep clean, we bought it from my sister! It would never have occurred to me to leave a welcome basket to be honest, we only ever moved once 20 years ago though so maybe it's expected now?

To be honest I doubt you'll get anywhere with legal action. The seller is no obliged to clean the house, they're not even obliged to leave door-knobs in place! A bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling is about all you're entitled to.

Unless your contract specifies certain things will be left in a certain state, you are wasting your time doing anything other than cleaning it while congratulating yourself that you are a more decent human being than the previous occupant ever will be.

Similar situation when I moved to this house 18 months ago except that the house had been rented out for years and years and because the mess was left by the last tenants, the vendors were adamant that it wasn't their responsibility to empty/clean the house. The last tenants had left over a year previously!
We knew it was a fixer-upper but there were so many other things that we had to do on top of what we had already planned. There was so much broken furniture left inside the house that we couldn't move our stuff in and the place was absolutely filthy. Our solicitor did not want to know and actually poo-pooed me when I rang to complain, it was only when I listed everything they left that she agreed to phone the vendors solicitor to get them to remove it.
It was a couple of weeks later that we decided to look at the overgrown garden, only to discover that it wasn't as dense as we had first thought as the weeds were covering a giant mound of rubbish which contained a three-piece suite, a mattress and bags of waste...
My husband never wants to move again due to all the stress and I still hate this house!

@ChelleDawg2020 my understanding is that the vendors should leave everything that is included on the fixtures and fittings list which is agreed and signed off in the sale process and becomes a part of what you are paying for.

If curtain poles and door handles are on that list, they stay in the property. They are no longer the vendors to take.

Wow, some real horror stories on here. When we moved in to our current house it had been empty for about 18 months-2 years. The owner had moved away to live nearer family. We were first time buyers and she wasn't buying so should have been simple, right? HA!

Before completion one of the family members must have been back in because we were met with no light bulbs not even one at the top of the very steep and uneven stairs, bare wires and fleas in the living room carpet. But, that was fixable.

What was 'entertaining' was her friend who she had told could keep an eye on the property now it had sold. Yep you read that right. The day after we had moved in we were getting to work repairing the wooden windows when a car pulled up. The friend (we had no clue at this point) demanded to know what we were doing to the house and wanted to be let in. We (me, husband is too nice) said no way. I then asked her if she had a set of keys, when we completed we were given 1 key for the house, no back door key nothing. She ummed and ahhed but admitted that yes she did. I said I'll have that back then. Funnily enough she claimed not to have it on her. As soon as she had gone I sent the husband out to get a new lock. He thought I was paranoid. Anyway next morning she came back and I caught her trying her key in our new lock. Needless to say that conversation was short and to the point.

Moving day itself had been entertaining. Our money went through, solicitor phoned to confirm. He phoned estate agents and confirmed via fax as well. Still no keys, according to the estate agents she wasn't going to take their word and would be checking with her bank but didn't want to go into town until the following week! We completed on a Friday and had got that one day off of work to move and then use the weekend. Estate agent was a bit wet and pathetic and seemed to pander to her. I phoned solicitor to confirm that legally house was ours. Yep. So called estate agents and said they either give me our keys or I kick the door in. They contacted her and still she refused but they caved and gave us our key.

Sorry for the ramble but it still makes me mad! We continue (8 years later) to find things they had done to 'improve' the house.

Sorry for that! Can you tell I still get annoyed by it?! The estate agent told me I couldn't kick the door in or I would get arrested. I pointed out it was my house and my door now, so I could.

These stories are getting worse ..... polar I’m livid on your behalf!

The thing is, it's not like a rental where deep cleaning is a condition of moving out. Unless specifically in your purchase contract to clean, (unusual) they only have to give "vacant possession". Cleaning when you move out is a courtesy most of us do it but not everyone by a long way.

If they removed fixtures that were in the list to stay or left their possessions behind you might get some money out of them but they don't sound cooperative.

I feel for you our first home was a pigsty I remember bleaching a square of kitchen worktop so there was somewhere to put a cup. But our problem was what they left not what they took!

Hope you get sorted soon!

Ours was just beyond filthy too. Just awful.

The money we would have had to pay the solicitor probably would have been more than the deep clean though!

Thank you waited! I genuinely wondered when telling people the story after if they would believe me, as it sounds like a comedy of errors when you look at it as a whole!

Contact your solicitor with regards to breach of contract.
I feel so sorry for you. When we bought this house, we were told that contracts and completion had to be done within 6 weeks otherwise the sale would fall through and when we sell it, we're going to put a similar stipulation on it as our neighbour sold their house at the beginning of December and then refused to move out until solicitors for the new owners forced them to 6 months later and they literally stayed until the very last available minute (and drove off with a dining table strapped to the back of a flatbed truck that was completely dressed with a tablecloth, crockery and a flippin' plant in the centre - never realised they were oddballs until that moment!) and the new owners still haven't been able to move in due to the state of the place (apparently).

I'm like you - when we moved out of our old house, I blitz-cleaned the old house from top to bottom and left a box of teabags, a pint of milk in the fridge (which we'd agreed to leave), a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine, a bunch of flowers and a welcome to your new home card with a note about when bin day was - it wouldn't even occur to me to take the lightbulbs, leave it as a cesspit or remove fixtures and fittings - I even swept the path in the back garden.