Would you buy a house if the owners had buried their pets in the garden?

[baddayattheoffice]

So, you've found a house you love, you've exchanged contracts and during a visit to measure the windows the owners drop it into the conversation that they had buried their deceased pets in the garden. Would this put you off buying the house, and if it put you off to the extent that you no longer wanted to buy it, (for example you wanted to dig out for an extension) what would you do?

Depends on how big the pets were!

wouldn't put me off.
bas been the done thing to bury pets in gardens since pets were a thing.

Wouldn't bother me at all.

I assume they dug deep, ask them where they are buried. Odd thing to mention. i didnt mention pets when we sold a relatives house.

I would still buy the house. Things might be buried in the surrounding land whether the sellers tell you or not!

Wouldn’t bother me at all. I bet there are some form of dead pet in nearly all gardens!

Wouldn’t bother me unless the pet had just died and I wanted to dig straight away, that might make me wait a bit.

I'd assume pretty much every garden has pets buried in it, I find it odd they mentioned it though.

There’s a gravestone to a pet in our garden so presumably the pet is under it! I thought it rather sweet- a part of the history of the house and it’s families.

Wouldn't bother me at all. I'd imagine most houses with gardens have a pet or two buried there.

Wouldn't bother me at all.

If you've exchanged contracts it's too late anyway. Unless you don't mind losing your deposit plus other associated costs your Vendor has incurred?

Wouldn’t bother me

I agree with Bluntness. Most gardens would have buried pets. Would you want them to dig them up and take them with them?

I find it odd they mentioned it though

Me too!

Blimey there’s not much you can do if you’ve exchanged!

Nope, there’s going to be all sorts of deceased wildlife there, and probably generations of pets too. Wouldn’t bother me at all

Are you the buyer or seller?

Not sure why it would bother anyone to be honest. In an older house you'd have no idea how many previously loved rabbits, cats etc were buried there would you? I'd assume that there is a fairly high chance that most gardens have some creature in the garden 🤷‍♀️

Unless they had pet elephants it wouldn’t put me off.

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest. We buried my pets in my mum's garden when I was a kid. In fact, I've buried some there since I've owned my own home. We have decking, so no area to dig up. I've called my mum crying before and said that one of my small furries has died and I'm coming over. When I get there my Dad has normally already dug a hole for me!

It wouldnt bother me.

Why would they bother you?They probably mentioned it incase you were ever going to dig the garden up to have work done and found them.

Chatting with a neighbour, she told me that a recently-sold house two doors down from me had a horse buried in the back yard. Standing up. When I mentioned it to another neighbour, he said no, the standing up horse was in my back yard.

Anyway, apart from the putative equine, I've buried a cat and a dog in the back yard.

Agreed - there's not much that can be done about it. The thing is that they're buried in an area where an extension is planned which would involve digging out for footings, sorry I know it's a bit grim. It came up in conversation because it was about having pets and how their dogs loved the garden "...so we buried them there" (pointing).

Wouldn't bother me.