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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Your moving horror stories?

162 replies

7yo7yo · 09/09/2020 16:53

I’ve been to help a friend move house today, loaded up the first van went to the new house and......the old owners are still there.
Didn’t realise they actually had to move today! Thought because of covid they had a period of grace and would move when it was mutually convenient.
Meanwhile back at friends house, removal men from their buyers will arrive in an hour and these little still had breakfast plates on the table!
They’ve been forcibly removed, but the mess!
Aibu to ask if anyone else gas gone through this? How do people not realise?

OP posts:

OffForARun · 09/09/2020 16:55

How was your friend given the go ahead if the vendors hadn't handed the keys to the EA?

ToastyCrumpet · 09/09/2020 16:59

I’d be having a word with the estate agent. Unless it was an online EA, they leave a lot to the individual’s initiative.

AmandaHugenkiss · 09/09/2020 17:00

@OffForARun

How was your friend given the go ahead if the vendors hadn't handed the keys to the EA?

Guessing EA still had a set of keys from doing viewings? I’ve been told to leave all my spare keys in an envelope in the kitchen for our buyer!

honeylulu · 09/09/2020 17:17

Oh God what a nightmare.

The last but one time we moved was horrendous. We packed up and cleaned our flat. We were sitting in the van about to move when our smiling buyer arrived and waved. I waited a few mins until midday and called the EA to say we were coming to pick up the keys. They said errrr, ok, hold on we will call back. Odd.

A couple of minutes later they called to say vendors not packed and needed longer. WTF . It was late July and sweltering. We had nowhere to go. Couldn't even go off for lunch as all our worldly goods were in our vehicles and did not dare leave them unattended.

After nearly 3 hours we heard nothing and husband stormed into EA office and demanded the keys to OUR house. We turned up there and vendors were still nowhere near packed. Their kids were lolling on the sofa watching TV.

We said a breezy hello and started moving our stuff in to their astonishment. It was a right pain (jostling for space) but they did get their arses in gear and finally fucked off around 5. They did leave some quite nice furniture and curtains that hadn't been part of the sale as they ran out of time. Ha! We've since moved again and brought that stuff with us!

When we moved into this house the EA called me in the morning to say vendors might need the whole day to move as the removal van was a bit small. I went full lawyer on them (I'm a solicitor) and said they'd better get a bigger van pronto and be gone by midday or I'd be suing for breach of contract. CFs. They were indeed gone in time.

BashfulClam · 09/09/2020 17:19

I don’t understand how people can’t grasp that once someone had paid for a property it is theirs. You no longer have to right to inhabit the place!

Original poster

7yo7yo · 09/09/2020 17:19

The estate agent gave their keys and apparently the vendors said they’d pass their own sets on (which they haven’t).

OP posts:

Russell19 · 09/09/2020 17:36

When we moved we were still packing last bits at 11am when the buyers mum turned up (investor) and just walked in the house although no money had been transferred yet. I told her to leave and wait in a nearby cafe and get her son to hurry along the payment. When we received the phone call from our solicitor that the money had been recieved we handed keys over and left to our new house. A family with 2 kids were still there saying their new build in the next street along wasn't ready as the money hadn't gone through. We started moving stuff into the garden while we waited and actually all stood in the kitchen together having a cup of tea 🤣 they left at about 5.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 09/09/2020 17:43

A friend, not me... Moving internationally, with shipping containers. A red shipping container left their old home. A blue one arrived. It wasn't their stuff. Their container had arrived elsewhere and was being unloaded. The mix up took a day to sort as they were 150 miles apart. (It was a major company relocation, so hundreds of people moving at once).

FraughtwithGin · 09/09/2020 17:50

The last time I moved we hired a company with a good reputation and asked them to pack as well.
What a waste of money!
Almost every item of furniture got scraped or a dent in it and was put in the house in such a way that we didn't see it at first.
The packing was dreadful, no logic behind it. For example, there was a pair of shoes under the dining table, one shoe went in one box, the other in another. I am not joking when I say that they were not reunited for over a year.
If I ever did it again, I would make sure that I had enough time to:

De-clutter first
Pack everything myself
Label boxes according to rooms, colour code and do a plan

I couldn't do that for the last move as I was "flitting" an hour each way to oversee building and decorating works. Husband was scheduled to help, but then got some work to do (freelance) so we ended up having to pay people to do the work he had originally planned on doing. Not the most pleasant experience.

TheWernethWife · 09/09/2020 17:58

We bought our latest house a few years ago. Was an old lady's house and her son did all the viewings .

On moving day the removal van turned up at ours, loaded up, ready to move. We checked that the money had gone through and rang his estate agents for the keys. No keys for us, apparently the guy was at work and said he'd call in to the office and drop them off later.

My partner rang him, told him the money had gone through and the house was ours now. He turned up 15 minutes later at the new house moaning that he'd not had time to move everything out. Dining table still set up, dishwasher in the middle of the kitchen (water all around, being soaked up by carpet underlay), where he'd tried to dismantle it and failed. We finally got everything in but just dragged a mattress into the front room and crashed for the night.

Found that he'd been selling some of his mum's furniture out of the garage, a bit was left there so my partner gave him two weeks grace to clear it (plenty of time we thought). He turned up a month later, by that time we'd gone though it and donated it to a local charity. Just "brown" furniture, not really worth much. If it had been G Plan or Ercol we would have had it. He was really taking the piss, btw he left us with a wasps nest and didn't tell us.

thegreenlight · 09/09/2020 18:01

We packed everything up, handed in the keys for our old house and drove the van with all our possessions in to a local Mc Donald’s to wait for the contracts to exchange (we had nowhere else to go!) by 6 they still hadn’t, drove back to our old house and the buyer had completely moved in! We were told if legal things didn’t go through before 6.30 we wouldn’t be moving until next working day and it was on a Friday!

Eventually it did go through with minutes to spare and we got the keys at 7.30pm (had to return the van at 8 the next morning, that was a busy night!) the people at the top of the chain came off worse as it didn’t go through for them in time but as they were buying from probate, they broke into the house and squatted for the weekend until they became legal owners on the Monday!

itchyfinger · 09/09/2020 18:04

My completion fell through on the day. We had moved out of our house as had the entire chain (except the first person who caused it to fall through and failed to notify the rest of the chain). Cue emergency accommodation, putting everything into storage and working out what the hell to do!

Disfordarkchocolate · 09/09/2020 18:06

We also bought a house and turned up to find the vendor hadn't emptied it. He thought he was just leaving all his Mam's furniture even though it wasn't listed on any of the paperwork and he'd said the house would be empty. We moved in a day late. It's surprisingly common it seems.

This house had a bloody ugly fire surround left in the garage we'd been asked if we wanted and said no. Plus a missing fire in the living room. Hey ho. Will still get some post for them, 3 years later.

JBEM4 · 09/09/2020 18:09

I don't have a story but love these kinds of threads so placemarking 😁

ToastyCrumpet · 09/09/2020 18:12

Now I know why the guy quoting to do my move picked me up when I said (by accident) that I’d be packing on the day I was due to move! It was just a slip of the tongue but he jumped on it.

sapnupuas · 09/09/2020 18:13

@itchyfinger

What did you do?

sapnupuas · 09/09/2020 18:17

My grandpa died just before and his funeral was the Friday before we moved on the Monday. House a complete mess with boxes everywhere.

MIL decided it was completely appropriate to take her friend (that we didn't know) to our house and show her around in that state.

Not as bad as everyone else's story but it really posed me off

wendywoopywoo222 · 09/09/2020 18:19

The man of the couple we were buying from phoned me three days before we were due to move in to say he had been hiding debts from his wife and unbeknown to her they didn't have a house to move on to. Cue lots of conversations with solicitor, him threatening to smash the house up and disappearing on the day with all the keys. Finally got the keys around 5pm, they had to move to her parents.

lachy · 09/09/2020 18:21

Mine isn't a horror story but when we moved into our current house it was minging. I'm by no means the cleanest person in the world, but it took me 3 hours solid to clean the bathroom.

I think the vendors stopped cleaning the moment it sold

Jokie · 09/09/2020 18:26

A friend of mine had everything going wrong for her move. Stuff that was listed on the inventory had been removed, light fittings were completely unsafe etc. She arrived at the place at 12pm after getting the keys and found the place was a complete mess. Maggots, flies, fleas in the carpet etc.

This would be expected in the house was rundown when she saw it but it was a picture perfect home. Apparently the owners moved out early as they were relocating to wales and had let someone stay there who trashed the place.

SoManyActivities · 09/09/2020 18:28

When I read this thread title I thought the OP was after horror stories that were emotional?!

Original poster

7yo7yo · 09/09/2020 18:29

There must be a better system! I don’t know what it is but there must be!

OP posts:

Terrace58 · 09/09/2020 18:32

We hired movers and a person came to our home to inspect in advance and estimate price. Day of, the driver says he can’t get the large vehicle up our hill. We had to pay for a second vehicle and extra time to ferry everything down the hill to the main one. It was expensive and frustrating and meant we left on the first leg of our very long drive to our new home well after we should have arrived at the hotel for the night.

labazsisgoingmad · 09/09/2020 18:48

not buying but renting. Partner and i were going to leave our 2nd floor flat, 6 flights of stairs to a house. Unfortunately just before the big day we had an emergency home sitting job come up from one of our regulars its our living so we couldnt really say no. I went to stay at the house over 40 miles away while partner coped the best he could with a couple of his nephews. I did wonder what on earth the house would be like when i got home as I had things in mind where i wanted them to go and its very hard trying to direct people by text message!
luckily when i got back it was not too bad at all the few things still needing rearranging didnt take long thankfully

BertieDrapper · 09/09/2020 18:50

When we last moved the guy was moving to Ireland, he had tons of stuff including a baby grand piano. EA advised us the day before he was all ready, everything packed and will be on his way first thing.
We arrived at midday with van full of stuff and a massive lorry was parked in the street... apparently had been there all night, but nothing had been loaded! We sat, we waited. Called our solicitor who said it was now our house and just start moving in! We waited till 5 and then just starting unloading our boxes. We still had another load of stuff to get from storage which was closing and only hired the men and van for one day!
So painful. Made worse by the fact the EA had lied about him being ready...

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