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Original poster

Bathroom comes with the house??!!

607 replies

greencygnets · 29/07/2018 12:10

So DH and I have just bought a new house (not brand new but new to us :)) and it cost us a lot of money (far more than a care to admit! :))
We moved in yesterday, the house is perfect except for one thing...

They've taken the bloody bathroom with them!!!!

One of the two main bathrooms upstairs is literally empty, like I don't mean just the furniture which you obviously take with you. But they've taken the bath, sink and shower!!!!

The room is tiled but theres random pipes sticking out of walls where these things should be!! The only thing left is the toilet. I honestly don't know what to do... We were going to redo the bathroom anyway at some point but never told this to anybody and weren't planning to do so until at least November/December time but now we don't have a choice!!

The kids come home from the holiday with my in-laws on Tuesday and we've got no bathroom for them!!!!

AIBU to think that the bathroom comes with the house, or is it totally reasonable to take the bathroom with you to your new house??!!

OP posts:
DontMakeMeShushYou · 31/07/2018 14:36

@Larrythecat We have installed a couple of new cupboards in our kitchen, so would have been very grateful for spare doors. Ditto paint - it's chipped in a couple of places in one room, so a part tin for touch up would have been handy (might not have matched exactly, but would have been closer than exposed plaster!).

This. There are 32 solid oak cupboard doors (and a set of large pan drawers) in my kitchen which is now discontinued. I much rather have a couple of spares floating around than potentially have to replace all the doors because one or two get damaged. :)

AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight · 31/07/2018 14:47

astoundedgoat, the kitchen thing is completely normal in Germany too (renting v popular and time-unlimited leases the norm, v normal to fit your own kitchen, sand down floorboards etc). The bathroom thing, though, is not - the most I've known someone to take is the loo seat.

chocolateaddicted · 31/07/2018 14:51

What a massive Doyle move! You don't take a bathroom with you it's part of the house. You need to do as PP have said and go to your solicitor. You either want a new bathroom or a refund to the cost of.

Thegirlinthefireplace · 31/07/2018 14:55

Our seller tried to leave a broken hot tub in situ. They were playing it as a big favour that they were leaving it for us and when we pressed them on whether it was actually in working order they went silent for ages and after much pressing they finally admitted that no, it didn't work and would cost thousands to fix (was v old). But in fairness when we said please remove it then they did so at their own expense and before we moved in.

chocolateaddicted · 31/07/2018 14:59

In fairness just one bathroom is perfectly doable. Our old house had only a shower in the only bathroom and we were fine. My son and I showered together from birth and he loved it. Now he's older he still comes in. Baby bath in the floor part works well and leave their socks on as this stops them slipping. As a temporary measure it's not the worst xx

Melamin · 31/07/2018 15:26

This reminds me of that old Richard Prior movie "Moving"

There was one called 'The Chain' in the 1980s property boom era.

soupforbrains · 31/07/2018 15:27

@greencygnets any further news today?

DeathByGlamour · 31/07/2018 15:28

Can the imagine what the new neighbours of the bathroom stealers thought when they saw them unloading a bath and sink...

Mumof1princess · 31/07/2018 15:29

House we moved into came with a shed. Wish we had looked in it before moving in as they left all their rubbish in it. Old wrecked charcoal bbq, loads of paint bromen tiles. I couldnt be bothered with the hassle of phoning to get them to get rid of it so just shut the door and put in a skip which we were hiring when we gutted the house

Melamin · 31/07/2018 15:32

This bit's better

GrumbleBumble · 31/07/2018 15:39

In many parts of Europe lots of kitchens are free standing rather than fitted so it is customary to take them when moving (the cupboards are not fitted to the walls so it's like having a Welsh dresser and taking that). In England a house without a kitchen is usually considered unmortgage able so if sellers stripped out fitted kitchen I'm not sure how that would work.

OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny · 31/07/2018 15:44

In England a house without a kitchen is usually considered unmortgageable

Our house didn't have a kitchen when we bought it (unless you count a camping stove on a table as s kitchen) but we got a mortgage no problem.

Melamin · 31/07/2018 15:50

I think a sink and a cupboard underneath it counts as a kitchen.

GoneWishing · 31/07/2018 16:01

Apparently they couldn't see the problem in it, they paid for the bathroom therefore they should keep it

Small blessing I guess that they hadn't had the roof fixed and hoofed off with that in tow...

havingabadhairday · 31/07/2018 16:43

@SenecaFalls I was glad of spare floor tiles as well, saved us from replacing the whole floor.

Not so glad at being left a huge pile of tiles that must have been there when they bought the house and that were no longer in use anywhere Hmm

AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight · 31/07/2018 17:11

'In many parts of Europe lots of kitchens are free standing rather than fitted so it is customary to take them when moving (the cupboards are not fitted to the walls so it's like having a Welsh dresser and taking that).'

IME people take entire fitted kitchens here as well. Have friends who lived in their (rented) house for a few years, bought a kitchen for it and took it with them to the next (rented) house when they moved. (Ours is free-standing). We have lived in places with fitted kitchens, incl oven and dishwasher, but it's not something you can necessarily expect, whether you rent or buy. Usually people leave kitchens in if they're felt to be too old/not worth the bother of taking along.

WinterBabyIsComing · 31/07/2018 18:12

Usually people leave kitchens in if they're felt to be too old/not worth the bother of taking along.

No. People don't take a fitted kitchen because it is part of the fixtures and fittings of the house.

GreenTulips · 31/07/2018 18:27

Are they covering the cost of a total refit or just the spare parts?

Have you negotiated tiling etc?

SilverHairedCat · 31/07/2018 18:37

Yes, be careful at the sum of money being offered. Just because the loo, bath and sink cost, say, £2k to buy online does NOT mean I would be accepting that figure. If be wanting the cost of the loo, bath, sink, taps, waste pipes, tiling, flooring, paint and all professional labour to remove existing tiles etc and remodel the room.

bella2bella · 31/07/2018 20:31

Our fairly small bathroom cost around £6k by time we'd paid for suite, tiles, flooring and fitting. I expect labour charges to be paid too.

raviolidreaming · 31/07/2018 20:48

my mind is boggling at what a makeshift bathroom might involve!

Keep boggling. The OP ignored a request for a photo ages ago.

Knittedfairies · 31/07/2018 20:55

The OP said in the original post that ’One of the two main bathrooms upstairs is literally empty’ so the makeshift bathroom is not going to be a bucket and a damp flannel!

WhenDoISleep · 31/07/2018 21:16

OP - sounds like a bit of a nightmare start to your new home, hopefully it will get resolved soon. When we bought a few years ago, the sellers offered us most of the furniture 'as you are moving from rented and so have none of your own' - which we were but our rental was unfurnished so we had a complete 4 bed house of furniture ourselves. She also wanted to offload her son's pets onto us as well. We subsequently found out that she was moving in to her partner's house so didn't want to have to dispose of anything herself. All though to completion we dreaded arriving and finding all that furniture (and the pets) left behind. Fortunately, she did remove it all, but left enough rubbish behind in the garden and the loft to fill most of the skip we had ordered to do some renovations before moving in ourselves. Oh, and she had kindly managed to break the built in oven the night before we completed. We basically had to let that and the cost of disposing of her rubbish go. It rankled for a long time though, as at one point it looked like we wouldn't have an oven fitted for Christmas (completed in December) - which would have made cooking Christmas Dinner interesting to say the least.

On the subject of kitchens, nearly 10 years ago now we were looking for a house to rent in a popular area of SW London. A house came on the market in the next street to a very popular, almost impossible to get into primary school. We were called by the agent as soon as it came on the rental market and arranged to see it.

We got to the house, and the new owners pulled up outside to do the viewing - apparently it was to be an open house style session. Anyway, we went in, and not only were there bare floorboards - not nicely striped and polished, these looked like the carpets had literally been ripped out, there was no kitchen at all and one of the supposed bedrooms was a pretty much a hut built onto the garage roof. The best part was when we asked the owners if they were doing some renovations before tenants moved in, they basically said no, it was to be taken as seen (the monthly rent was at the top of the market for the area too).

We obviously declined to rent the house, as whilst we didn't care if the kitchen was the latest in fashion as long as it was functional having a kitchen at all was a basic requirement, as tenants we were not about to start buying and installing a kitchen from scratch out of our own pocket. I do know from speaking to the letting agent later the next week, someone who saw the house that day did take it. I can only imagine it was used as a postal address for school applications, rather than as an actual residence as it wasn't a functional home to live in as tenants.

Jux · 01/08/2018 00:39

I hate fitted kitchens. I'd much rather have my own free standing cupboards, sideboard, dresser etc. A sink and a cooker is all I want, a larder would be the only other 'built in' thing I'd welcome.

We're planning on moving in the next couple of years. Does anyone know of a bungalow (preferably) without a built in kitchen? I doubt that such a thing exists any more. If I don't like the layout, I'd have to rip the whole thing out; what a waste of money and resources.

AnElderlyLadyOfMediumHeight · 01/08/2018 07:53

WinterBaby, you must have missed my previous post where I said I was in Germany. I was explaining what happens over here, in response to some posters talking about experiences in other parts of Europe/elsewhere.

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