Your moving horror stories?

[7yo7yo]

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?

I rent
We've had:
The shitty landlord before deposits had to be held in an official independent account, who said he would "inspect" our house the day before our move and give us the amount he felt we were entitled to. We needed the full 2k back or couldn't pay for the house we were moving into. I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown at the time, not helped by the landlord being an utter wankpuffin.
When we moved in the carpet was vile, so we asked to remove it and sort the floorboards. Always get things in bloody writing people. He denied all knowledge, and said he was keeping £1000 of our deposit for the carpet. He then accused us of removing furniture that had never been in the house, that was £250 he was keeping. By the time he had finished, we were left with about £50 of our 2k. I was in tears as we faced having to lose the home we had secured. He didn't care. He was literally laughing in my face. In the end my DH came home, found me in tears and told the Landlord he best get his figures redone or not only would we not leave, we wouldn't pay a penny of rent until bailiffs came and launched us out which can take months, and before they did he would wreck the entire house. I've never seen him so angry. Landlord ended up giving us £1750 and my sis in law gave us the extra bit. He still sent police to our new home accusing us of stealing his furniture. They actually apologised to us when we showed them we didn't have his furniture and never had.
Few years later we had the landlord who was bankrupt and house was being repossessed. He didn't care to tell us that though for months on end. We luckily found somewhere else and thought there was no chance of getting our deposit back, but his mother turned up to collect the keys and she handed me an envelope with the deposit plus extra to apologise. However, when we were packing stuff into a van, a bailiff arrived and told us everything in the house was seized. He then started taking notes of stuff of ours in the van, and walked off with our TV. We called police who said as we had a tenancy document still that said unfurnished, he clearly couldn't pinch our stuff, thank goodness I hadn't chucked it. And as a plus, we got to take the very nice new cooker and fridge freezer as the police decided all the fixtures were ours, landlord clearly wasn't going to give a shiny shit either.
Then we have the landlord in 2015 who assured us it was a long long let, he was running houses as a business fund for himself in retirement. Letting agent asked us to resign the tenancy for another year in November, £90 to do so.
On 2nd January we got a no fault eviction notice as did all 7 of his households. No explanation. Kids settled in school. Straight after Christmas so broke.
We again got lucky as the letting agent knew we were good tenants, so recommended us to another landlord who rented us a house (he came to look at the one we were in to buy but it was grossly over priced).
However, on moving day, the agents staff member told me they were keeping our deposit of 3.5k as the carpet needed to be replaced. Luckily I had kept my email informing workmen they hired to fix the roof had completely trashed the carpet a month after we moved in. Suddenly we got the money back. As we were moving out though, the landlord, he of the long long let bullshit, turns up, poked his head round the door, and says, oh good, you're off then, good stuff, I will get the for sale sign up this afternoon. I nearly threw a shoe at him I was so angry.
I hate moving
And landlords

We were due to move on a Friday, van packed, money transferred from our buyers, they arrived and started to move in. Set off in our two cars following removal van for short 5 mile drive to new place. Massive hold-up on motorway because there was a herd of cows on the road. We were literally going one junction along the motorway. It took well over an hour. Arrived at new house. Family with small kids, they had packed, were just waiting for confirmation that our money had come through...we waited....and waited. They had emptied the house, so we all sat awkwardly in the back garden. We felt like it wasn't really our house yet, so asked their permission to measure one of the windows to double check a curtain fitting. They felt like it was no longer their house, so asked our permission to take their kids to the toilet. It was so, so awkward...time marched on and our solicitors advised us that if the transfer of funds hadn't come through within the next 15 mins (by 3.30 pm) the banking system would close and we would be unable to move in until after the weekend. This was over 20 years ago, so hopefully the banking transfer system is now a bit swifter, but it was a very stressful 15 mins. Fortunately the money came through at the eleventh hour!

By way of background we were selling our leasehold business with accommodation (like a pub) and moving back to the house we owned and which we'd been renting out. We'd served notice on our tenants with a view to having a week between them vacating and us moving back in so DH and his brother could move our stuff back at leisure.

What actually happened...

Tenants were meant to move out on the Friday. The following Monday, DH and BIL take the truck with most of our furniture and possessions and they go to the letting agent to pick up keys. No keys. Tenants still in situ until the following week and (apologies to the good tenants out there but) There's. Not. A. Fucking. Thing. We. Can. Do. About. It.

Spent that week trying to organise storage for our stuff, accommodation for our pets (everyone wants the dog no one will touch the cats) and for ourselves as we were about to be homeless from that weekend as we had a contractual completion date for the Friday on the sale

But all's well that ends well. We weren't homeless because our buyer failed to complete. For two weeks.

FML the stress.

My first (owned) house, 1 week after buying - we found someone in the hall - the son of the previous owner apparently. He'd come back from uni and found his parents had moved house. To be fair to them (we called and spoke to them), they'd tried and tried to contact him - this was before most people had mobiles, but he'd ignored letters and not called them and his student house had no landline.

They did come and pick him up

@underneaththeash

My first (owned) house, 1 week after buying - we found someone in the hall - the son of the previous owner apparently. He'd come back from uni and found his parents had moved house. To be fair to them (we called and spoke to them), they'd tried and tried to contact him - this was before most people had mobiles, but he'd ignored letters and not called them and his student house had no landline.

They did come and pick him up

That's hilarious!

And why it's important to change the locks asap after moving in. (Not that we've ever done it!)

Moved into a fourth floor flat in an older building. Moving in got stuck in the ancient lift for an hour. Had to be released by maintenance.

Moving out one year later - yep. Stuck in lift for TWO hours. Had to be released by maintenance.

Used the lift multiple times in between with nary a problem.

FML sometimes.

Estate agents lost their set of keys for our new house, locksmith had to beak in for us. Estate agent paid the bill

@underneaththeash

My first (owned) house, 1 week after buying - we found someone in the hall - the son of the previous owner apparently. He'd come back from uni and found his parents had moved house. To be fair to them (we called and spoke to them), they'd tried and tried to contact him - this was before most people had mobiles, but he'd ignored letters and not called them and his student house had no landline.

They did come and pick him up

Many years ago my parents neighbours moved, new couple moved in. A few weeks later, they woke in the early hours to a noise. Man in camouflage gear in hallway. Shouting from neighbours about getting out of their house, shouting from man about what the hell had they done with his parents. Turned out he was military, was used to just turning up unannounced at weird hours and was really crap at keeping up with his mail 😂

There was the move of 8 hours between 2 rentals. Held up on the journey by a blizzard. Oh, and by the police pulling me over, because they thought it looked suspicious that I hadn't removed the old tax discs from my windscreen when adding the new one. Then the van didn't turn up. Apparently it had blown its turbo, so they had to find another van. In the meantime make it to the letting agent with not many minutes to spare. Get to the house. Each door has a top and a bottom lock. They've given me the keys to the top lock of one door and the bottom lock of the other door. Technically letting agent closed by now, but thank god answered the phone eventually. Brought more keys, which thankfully let us in. My dad dived into the downstairs loo. Shortly afterwards we hear banging. The handle had fallen off the inside of the toilet door. Remember the bit about the blizzard? The boiler wasn't working. Was actually a great place to live, but not a good start.

Bonded with our new next door neighbours when they knocked on the door and asked if their son could use our loo.

They’d been parked on the cul de sac outside for 3 hours waiting for money to move!

I’d been wfh at the back of our house so hadn’t seen them but got the kettle on for them.

They are lovely neighbours now and give me loads of rhubarb every year

I cried on my moving day and it takes a lot to set me off.

All packed into 60 boxes we got from the removal company.
Walked kids to school, expecting to see removal van when I got back, not there.
Rang company, all have left depot, tget'll be with you soon.
Half an hour later, rang again.
They didn't have me in the diary . Despite me paying a hefty deposit and then bringing me boxes round, they denied all knowledge of me and blamed me for not ringing them the day before.
Rang around other removals and managed to find a company who would send vans over as they finished at other jobs.
My dh went to get keys early afternoon at new house 35 miles away. He didn't bother coming back.
I finally retrieved my dogs from the neighbour across the way at 7pm and headed off to the new house.
It was gone midnight before we got to bed.

I managed to retrieve my deposit and left a scathing review on their website. The owner responded to it with complete and utter contempt towards me. He was narked because I mentioned the other company who rescued us by name.
I edited my review and pointed out what a bully the owner was.
They took their review page down after that and never reinstated in.

I had a move where the removal team didn't turn up. When I got hold of them they had me down for the next day. Thank god it was another rental to rental move, and was moving with a day to spare. Unfortunately this meant I no longer had a free day to unpack before working 17 days straight...

Can I just pop my head in to say this thread has finally fully explained to me this UK ‘chain’ business with house-buying. Seen it frequently on MN, but it’s so different to the process we use on the other side of the world, I could never get my head around it. So thanks everyone!

Sounds like an unnecessarily stressful way to do things. I suppose there must be an upside, but that’s for another thread clearly!

Very outing but I moved into a private rented house many years ago after selling our old house. The landlord had taken it upon himself to be there on move in day and set up the furniture how he liked, ordering the removal men around and looking through our belongings. When questioned he would say ‘it’s my house’. We thought he was finally leaving 6 hours later, but unfortunately he came back with a take away (for himself) and sat down watching us unpack all evening. It was painfully awkward. We moved out a week later as he turned up daily to check his house it was a long, stressful, expensive week. I heard he eventually had trouble keeping tenants and sold up.

Not a problem with the house as such but when I moved from one house to another I only needed a small van because I was just starting to build up furniture after years of living in furnished lets.
I drove the transit no problem... until I tried to reverse and took down my new neighbours 6ft fence. Amazingly the van didn't have a mark on it.
However I did have to shelve out 300 towards a fence repair and moving house was expensive enough.
I've never moved myself again.

many years ago i was employed to clean a house when the people left. it was a big house had been used as a boarding house and formerly a children's home so you can imagine huge over three floors. When i got there was shocked to find the lady had just picked up her coat and jewellery and walked out. The husband had gone abroad never to be seen again. literally everything was there from clothes to food in the cupboards. i walked out and left it for the solicitor to sort out

When we moved the previous owners left the house in a filthy state and a garage and numerous sheds full of junk , had to hire a skip to get rid they left a big container too with their stuff and arrived early one Saturday morning to get it unexpectedly. The woman arrived another day and asked to take some flowers from the garden and a dogbed she left . The last straw was the day the husband turned up and asked was the wife here .

We were moving ourselves from the very large family home after father had died, me & my bro into separate houses. Firstly my chain was held up, so I had to camp out at DBro's new house for the first month after moving - we are still recovering from the mental scars of that over years later! We had always agreed that if either of us was held up this would be the arrangement, but it did mean all my furniture etc going into his garage & most of my household stuff including clothes as well.

Then on the day of the move I went to pick up our friends who were helping us, including the guy who was going to drive the removal van we had rented (HGV driver). They were supposed to be driving themselves over, but the car had broken down so I had to go & fetch them. About a mile from home, driving up a steep windy hill, car comes down & smashes into the car in front of us pushing it back into my car. Police, ambulances, I've got so stressed I had an asthma attack & they were trying to take me away to hospital, held up for a good 2 hours. 2 of the friends left as soon as police allowed & walked to the house to explain details & start the moving.

Eventually get to the old house to find the buyers waiting outside at 11am, despite completion being at 2pm. Explained what had happened, showing them the damage to my (luckily still driveable) car. Meanwhile van driving mate had been taken to pick up the van only to find that the rental company had given us a 3.5 tonne van instead of the 7.5 tonne we'd ordered, so 2 trips would be necessary.

Luckily the weather was very dry, and the old house had a mahoosive front lawn, so we were madly taking stuff from the house & putting it on the lawn room by room as they were moving THEIR stuff in room by room. Driver & 2 others shot off with one van load to the new house while the remaining 3 of us finished emptying the house onto the lawn.

I think we were finally away by about 4pm, which bearing in mind how the morning had gone was pretty impressive!

Minds nothing like some of these horror stories!
When I viewed a house it was winter and the garden viewing was always hurried by the vendors, "oh it's cold out here" or "it's too dark to see much".The garden looked okay,was divided in half and only ever saw the first half before being distracted by vendor.when I moved in and walked up the garden for the first time,the (longer and larger)second half was over six foot high in brambles,old radiators,rotten carpets,you name it.took me months to clear.
When I tried to use the shower the first night,next to the kitchen,it refused to work.
Called an electrician the next day who worked through the wiring and he pointed out it was very dodgy but I had to switch on the cooker socket to get the shower to go on.
And once a year,this is truly weird,around the same time,overnight the dining room would be absolutely writhing in maggots.They were everywhere.I'm very much always cleaning so it was a mystery.on year three,no maggots.never found out why.
But to those moving today....Good luck!these horror stories are just a few and I'm sure there are just as many happy memories!

We had our offer accepted in the September but come December the owners had still not found a property they liked. They were looking to move to another part of the country. We had to vacate our old house just before Christmas and move in with my DM, or lose our buyer - they were thin on the ground at that time. In the end the owners bought a house locally and we were able to complete and move in in the January.

Some of these stories 😮😮 I've moved loads but have been really lucky, but then I've never gone direct from one house to another. Always had to either rent or lodge with parents for a few weeks and put the majority of stuff into storage!

However I did help a friend move once - the day before ,moving, I was packing her kitchen up, cleaning inside cupboards, fridge etc and was halfway through cleaning her oven when she swans in and announces she's off down the road to a jewellery party as she needs a break from the packing!! That I was doing!!! For her!!! She also decided to save money by using a local removal firm who turned up that afternoon to start packing the lorry - they loaded all the furniture from downstairs.

Next morning (having taken a precious days holiday to help - yes I was a mug!!) I get there about 8am and the half packed lorry turned up at 9am. I basically followed removal men round, cleaning each room as they emptied it. Didn't see friend for ages until got to master bedroom - she was on her knees scratching limescale off the en suite loo with a teaspoon and had been for the past hour.

Removal men decided that they couldn't fit everything on the lorry so would it be OK to leave the other load in the garage and collect it the next morning - friends husband was quite forthright in No!! - only moving around 6 miles away so they could unload and reload but men didn't want to work after 5pm. Silly idiots should have correctly assessed the load and realised a big 4 double bedded house wouldn't pack down into a 3.5 tonne lorry! They finally delivered the last of the old house to the new one at about 7.30pm and were moaning the whole time, smashed a couple of garden ornaments 'accidentally'.

I moved into one house and the owner had left, but the house was full of their possessions down to sheets on the bed and milk in the fridge.

Twice now we have had all the money from our sale go astray through no fault of our own. The last time it took 5 days to find it.

My horror a wee bit similar to yours, the couple we bought from changed their mind, they just didn’t want to leave. She was crying and wailing, it was dreadful. The husband was pleading with us to just “forget about it, take your money back”. The signs were there from the beginning, as we had to be interviewed by them twice, they really were very strange. They then came back about 3 years later whilst visiting neighbours, I didn’t let them in!

my parents bought a house to do up. Real mess of a place. (they did this quite often) and bought as a bargain.
Old stone house, with flat above and big workshops below and outhouses down the side.

We arrived. (having had money and keys etc) The seller was in bed, not one thing packed, he had been forced into the sale due to financial issues and didn't want to move. Fridge full of food etc. His girlfriend then turned up and started packing him up while he stomped around and shouted.
The house was like a junk shop hoarders heaven. The workshop and outhouses were floor to ceiling with stuff. The flat had one usable room, and the rest were stuffed with junk. Not rubbish, more like the sort of stuff you'd get in a down market 'antique' shop.

Girlfriend found a removal firm, they turned up with 2 small vans, they emptied most of the flat, and then both vans were full. They set off, we started cleaning the kitchen and bathroom of the flat so we could use them. The removal vans came backwards and forwards about 6 times, major fuss by them as they were told 2 bed flat! They managed to empty the flat and the workshops underneath but none of the outbuildings.

He left the outbuildings full. The removal men told us that he only had a sort of gararge sized store at his new place.
The 'garden' was full of broken old cars, it took him 12 months to move those, and we were told we could not get rid (they were worth something) as they were not ours.

So we camped out in the flat and builders arrived the next day and gutted the place with us in it. We camped there all summer as they made a house out of it. One cold water tap upstairs and one electric socket downstairs for most of the summer, it was like the famous five. (not for my mum I think!)

previous owner came back a few times and was really unpleasant. Finally we made legal moves about the cars and he came a dragged them all away.

Horror stories like these really take the shine off what should be the excitement of moving in to a new home.
Basically I am shocked that so many people have similar stories about vendors not being ready to move out when they arrive to move in to their new home.
Surely if this is so common something should be done about it?
The next time I move I am going to insist that my solicitor makes sure the vendor's understand the process of exchange and they need to be ready to move out the moment the money is transferred.
My own story is similar to others... Arrived at the state agents at agreed time to pick up the keys, 2 hours later and countless phone calls and still no keys.
Eventually keys arrived so we drove to the new house to find the vendors loading up a small van. I confronted them but decided you cannot argue with stupid and a group of hostile people. I agreed to give them more time and they eventually moved out by 9pm that evening.
Luckily I was not moving in for a couple of weeks and my furniture was still in storage. I returned the next morning and they had left bits of furniture behind which I threw in a skip.
This week 2.5 years later someone turned up asking if I had any post for them!