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?

@WitchQueenofDarkness

Solicitor sent our £750K to a random and wrong bank account.

I aged considerably that day....

Christ. I'm not surprised.

@BuggerBognor

We bought current house from a divorcing couple. They didn’t speak to each other and the husband didn’t speak to us at all - just glowered one the background. The house had been on the market for a year and so we made a low-ball offer which was accepted. They then tried to sell us loads of their furniture which we genuinely didn’t want/need because we were actually going from 3 homes to 1 and had to get rid of some of our own furniture. So we politely said thanks but no thanks.

On moving day we found

• a burning pyre of their furniture in the back garden which had to be extinguished by the fire brigade
• the garage still chock full of their crap including broken white goods and a rusty filing cabinet
• all 5 toilets filled to the brim with shit - clearly a family decision not to flush for several weeks
• every single lightbulb smashed but left in situ. (I spent the first night removing them all with half a potato while sobbing to myself, and still managed to slice my hand open.)

I’m never moving again!

That's so vile. Ours was an inch thick in dust everywhere as the leaving lady had spiralled in depression and hadn't cleaned for a year. I had booked a cleaning firm for the moving day but they didnt arrive. Cue 7 months pregnant me having my first asthma attack!

@mrsBtheparker

I'm reminded about moving quarters in our military days, we had to do what was/is called a 'march out'. Back in the day everything was supplied down to the last spoon-egg and at the end of one's time there everything was inspected. The frying pan used for a few years had to be pristine, we once had someone doing the march out who got onto her knees in front of the gleaming cooker, out her hand underneath and scraped her nails on the underside, 'There's grease under there'. When families were being moved out because a block was being renovated the flat still had to be sparkling clean, including the windows that were being taken out the following day.

Oh yes! One march out my mum had a guy with a white glove running his fingers on the top of doors!!

Moving house in 24 hours

Had a call from the council Tuesday evening, got the keys for the new house on Wednesday, and had moved in by Thursday.

We moved in unique, very difficult situation, a year on and DD and me are living very happily in the new house.

I always scoffed a bit at the advice to change locks, but after what happened today...

Bought a house in 2018, spent 2 years renovating it (hadn't been lived in for 40 years), just opened it recently as a holiday let. Second lot of guests managed to mortally offend the neighbour by (perfectly legally) walking down the edge of a field in front of his house. Neighbour has taken the serious huff with me and the lady who does my changeovers reports that when she went in to clean between guests today she found not only the 'Sorry' card I'd sent him, but also a set of keys to the house posted through the door - he'd obviously kept the set he was given by the previous owner. I did wonder when he said to me about a year ago 'I've got the same basin you've put into your upstairs bathroom, but mine has gold taps' - I assumed he'd just sneaked past my tradesmen.

Next house I do is having the locks changed on completion!!

Had a car crash a couple of weeks before we moved and seriously hurt my back. Massive issues meant we exchanged at 4pm the day before we moved and didn't know if we WERE moving until that point. I was in the middle of a project at work and had been refused permission to have more than a day off and in fact had to go on a business trip the day after the move.

Probate sale - we agreed to finish emptying the house but it turns out there was A LOT to empty - including the previous owner's used toothbrush and toiletries... we had to clear each room before we could bring boxes in. House had also been empty for a long time so we had to throw all the doors and windows open to air the place.

Finished moving in about 10pm, delirious and off my head with back pain, not eaten all day, freezing cold due to airing the house - only to discover we couldn't get the boiler to work so no heating or hot water.

I sat and cried and asked DH to take me home.

All the problems quickly rectified after I got back from my trip but it was the most horrific moving day, mainly due to being crippled.

I’ve never changed the locks or alarm codes and I’ve moved several times .

Bought my first ever home with a friend (back when this was a thing)- no help from family at all.

Moved in and the vendors had left EVERYTHING behind. So we could not move our stuff in- it was a flat with no storage. We had to pile all our stuff in the living room.
We had agreed to buy a sofa from them, which they left. Then the next day the bailiffs turned up to collect the sofa which they had bought on credit.

Bailiffs were calling 2-3 times a day. Gas, phone, electric could not be connected as the house had a bad rating against it (yes it was a long time ago).
They had never emptied the bin- just jammed it into the little patch of garden we had

When we found a note with 'mum's new address' on it, we gave it to everyone who called. I felt it was justified for the shit they left us in.

One more tip - hire professionals if you have a lot of stuff. It always takes longer to pack and load than you think

Absolutely this. It is worth every penny.

My last two moves have been very hassle-free, because the removal men rock up and pack everything, and you get to unpack at your leisure. They even have these fab tall boxes with a door and a hanging rail for the clothes in the wardrobes.

My last move was job-related and I spent a year in a rented flat, as the market was dead and I couldn't sell. The flat had no wardrobes, so I used those boxes for a year!

Having said that, it still wasn't hassle free. The removal men on the first move got lost between Croydon and Sussex, and what should have been a one-hour journey took 5 hours.

On the second move, into this house, I had what I thought was flu but was actually a strep infection that went to my kidneys and nearly put me in hospital. A lovely colleague who lives in the same road was brilliant, got me shopping, made me meals and sent her kids round twice a day to walk my dog.

@Flynn999, that happened to my friend, but it was more than 12 weeks before she could move into her new-build!

She was retired and already had 2 holidays arranged, but she lived like a nomad for those weeks. She'd "housesit" for any friends that went away and in between stayed with one or other of her adult children.

She got a decent amount of compensation though, which she spent on a 3-month trip to Australia, NZ and the South Pacific the following year.

We moved into our place two years ago.

As soon as we’d completed in court (slightly different system here) We went to new house and met the locksmith who changed all the locks for us. We were planning to move in next day so stayed at dparents for the night. At 8pm we had a call from estate agent saying that the old owner couldn’t get home and we’d illegally changed the locks. We needed to let him in immediately.

I refused because they didn’t own it any more. And we’d been advised by our lawyer to change locks.

When we went in and started unpacking we had to empty the loft and the garage of all the previous owners crap. I asked EA whether they wanted it. Response via email from EA was that we could dump as they hadn’t needed to keep it. Response came via EA from the old owner.

6m later the owner wants the stuff they had in the loft (mingling sheepskin coats etc) and insisted we get it for them. Threatening to have us charged with theft etc. I told him to jog on we had correspondence saying that we could dump. So we had done so. He threatened to sue for compensation. Again told him to jog on. Offered to suggest a lawyer. Apparently “no one keeps emails or takes them seriously”

😱

The wife of the couple we bought from clearly did not want to move, she dragged her feet and was very obstructive. When we finally completed after 5 months I was so disappointed to walk in to a filthy house and a garage and shed full of their stuff which 'they'd collect on Monday' ! I'd spent a week cleaning our old house and left a card and a bottle of wine for the new owners, it was such a disappointment!
We paid for a packing service with the removals firm and it was the best decision we made.

Mine is minor compared to this. We arrived and the previous owners had taken the curtains that should have still been there. I called the solicitor and he was so unhelpful and said the only way to get them was through the small claims court which was £255 and as the curtains were only about £100 it wasn’t worth it. Still £100 we shouldn’t have had to spend though. Plus the house stank of dog, you know the horrid heave smell of wet dog. Apologies to any dog owners but when you don’t have them it’s really noticeable. They’d hidden the smell during viewings using glade plug ins and scented candles. Not only did we feel deceived, it was about another £150 ish on a carpet cleaner, carpet soap and bicarbonate of soda to get rid of the stink.

Just to reassure people.
I posted a horror story upthread about a my parents did.
We moved loads as a kid, every 4 years or so, including one from overseas with a container. I have moved loads as an adult too, including some overseas moves.
Apart from that horror story, the rest have all been smooth sailing. Often a clean house, never an weird issues, all arrived on time etc etc.

So by my average, probably 1 in 30 is a nightmare.

Moving countries last year.... not a patch on some of these stories but coordinating leaving our rental place in Cambs, selling car, clearing house.... the plane trip from hell (due to tech issues it took over 50 hours to get to Victoria, Australia...)... I think I'm due an honourary degree in logistics...

Most of these make my experience seem quite mild. We once bought from owners we never met, they were letting the house out and the tenant (who turned out to be quite well-known in a certain field) showed us round. We got the distinct impression she didn't want to move - but the sale proceeded anyway.

On moving day we turned up with the keys (the house was ours legally by then) and her movers were still faffing around shifting stuff out. Took a few hours and they were in no hurry either. I seem to remember we went away for a while, came back and they were still at it.

It turned out she'd been told by 'friends' that she ought to just refuse to vacate and sit tight - thank God she didn't. The movers ripped out light fittings as well. Left bare wires dangling. Place wasn't very clean. Shudder.

Mine is nothing compared to some of these but...

I moved in January this year. And I moved all of thirty yards (from a huge rented house to a lovely tiny cottage that I bought). Because it was such a short distance to move there was no need for a van - it would have been stupid. So we (my kids, friends and I) carried all the furniture and fittings down the road. In gale force winds and storm force rain, with the cats following us up and down and everyone trying to remember to shut the dog in wherever they were.

Dog kept escaping and turning up in random houses. Furniture got wet. Things got dropped.

That was a fun few days.

I second the poster who advised upthread to beware of divorcing couples.

We bought from a couple who were going through a very nasty split, they were both still living in the house and it was obvious that they didn't want to sell but neither was prepared to buy the other out.
Estate agent actually warned us before we viewed that if they were both at home there would be an 'atmosphere'.

They were an absolute pain in the arse during the entire process and if we hadn't loved the house so much we'd have pulled out.

Day of the move
Husband of the couple was drunk and his idea of moving was chucking things out of the front door onto the drive.
Wife wandered around the house wailing about how we were 'stealing her dreams' by buying the house.
Finally got them out, spent months fielding bailiffs as the husband apparently had a gambling problem which may explain the divorce.

It turned out that they had kids at the same school as ours so when I saw the wife at the school gates she'd do a dramatic sigh and very loudly talk about how distraught she was thinking about "how much damage the new owners were doing to HER beautiful house"

When we ripped out the kitchen (which was old and knackered) she stood at the end of the drive staring at the skip pretending to cry.

I felt very sorry for the children. But I bloody love our house!

Oh yes! One march out my mum had a guy with a white glove running his fingers on the top of doors!!

I forgot this when I wrote the original but as well as the white glove across the top of the door we once had someone pass string through the lock and complained it was oily in there!

OMG what horror stories, my experience was good and bad. After moving to another county and my buyers fannying about for months on end as they lived with their parents and were in no rush to move in, leaving me renting and paying the mortgage for 6 months and living on beans on toast...finally sold the house and moved into the new one one day before lockdown!!!
Had it been a day later I'd have had to give up my new job and go back to my original house.
However the new house was soooooo filthy I had to have all the light switches changed in the whole house and plug sockets in the house changed as they were so ingrained with filth from the previous owners hands they could not be cleaned.
And the removal men who had a really good reputation broke half of my furniture because they crammed it in too tight. I never got any money back as their insurer did not cover furniture moved into a storage facility so I'm having to take them to the small claims and sleep on the floor on my mattress as they lost all of the bed screws and fixings.

Crikey some of your tales make mine pale even though it felt fairly traumatic at the time.
We had two houses to sell and one to buy as we were becoming a blended family.
Buyers for my property seemed lovely at the beginning but very quickly became annoying. They were first time buyers so the came on a first visit together, then she came back multiple times with different families members, then them wanted to come back yet again and measure up. With three young children and a job it was fairly wearing making sure the house was pristine for each visit.
They criticised everything including wanting me to repaint rooms as they didn’t like the colours, wanted me to include the washing machine and dishwasher for free and also for me to have them serviced and signed off as safe at my expense. Also wanted the boiler serviced even though it had been done six months earlier. Really wanted to invite them to Foxtrot Oscar but was worried about losing the sale so politely said I wouldn’t be leaving the appliances.
We booked movers who would also pack both homes up. They had great reviews so we felt fairly comfortable with them.
They turned out to be a nightmare, not enough people and packers to do everything in time.

Suddenly my buyer wanted to exchange and complete with just a few days notice or they would pull out. Ran around like headless chickens and thought the solicitors had everything lined up and a date was set.
Except the house we were buying had not agreed to the date and wanted to complete four days later.
My buyers refused to alter even though they were living with parents so I found places for my children to stay with school friends and I booked a cheap and cheerful hotel for me and partner. We rang around and eventually found a storage place about thirty minutes away that could hold our belongings for a four days.
On the day of the move the lorry turned up late, was half the size we’d paid for and only had two out of the promised five men.
Emptying my partners house took ages as they had to make several one hour trips to the storage unit, because only two turned up my house was unpacked so I was frantically trying to box things up and put them out the front of the house. Luckily it was a dry December day.
My buyers arrived at 2pm wanting to take charge of the house even though completion was at 4pm and they were not staying there that night. As we ran in and out of the house dumping stuff out the front they followed us from room to room berating me for not being ready.
Through no fault of my own, I ran over time and finally got everything bar a few cans of paint I’d left if they wanted to touch up any scuffs and a small garden shed.
When we finally completed our our new house four days later it turned out the movers had damaged so many items and lost parts of furniture that needed to be assembled. We sued and one in the small claims court but they shut down their business and moved so we couldn’t track them down to get the money.
Several days later my buyers solicitor contacted us wanting several hundred pounds compensation for the ‘rubbish’ (paint and shed) that I’d left. The buyer stated it cost them that to remove everything. When I mentioned that to my old neighbour she said the shed was still there and sent me a photo. Funnily enough we never heard again from the solicitor.
There was a silver lining though...the government changed the stamp duty rules and because of the delayed completion on our house purchase we saved thousands while my buyer didn’t.
Like so many others my plan for the next move is that I’m carried out in a box

They even have these fab tall boxes with a door and a hanging rail for the clothes in the wardrobes.

Oh God, I'd need a whole pantechnicon for my clothes

Actually that reminds me of when I moved from a furnished rented flat to another and realised I'd left all my clothes in the wardrobe of the old flat...

But OP I do have a lovely moving story (which will possibly out me). When we bought this house, the family we were buying from were buying the house next door (bigger than ours) from a chap who'd moved into a care home and as they were dear friends he'd happily allowed them to move in early once we'd all exchanged so by the day of completion they were already out. We arrived mid morning with our van which was very optimistic knowing the vagaries of the banking system, but they let us move in straightaway and by lunchtime we were in and the kettle was unpacked. We offered them tea but they produced a bottle of champagne instead which we all drank together.

We both did the same job and 20 years on we're still great mates and now we work together as well

(It was very confusing for their poor elderly cat who took a while to cotton on that she didn't live here anymore 😻).

When I moved house two years ago with a long chain that had taken a long time to get to completion, Barclays online system went down and my buyer's sale to the one at the bottom of the chain did not complete, hence the rest of the chain did not complete.
I spent the afternoon sitting outside my new house on a cold winter day on the phone alternately to my solicitor and the removal company. The man in the removals office kept threatening to call his men away which he did in the end at 4.30pm when nothing was sorted. My worldly goods spent the weekend at a depot somewhere and I had to find somewhere to stay for three nights.
When this happens apparently the solicitors are usually able to come to a "gentleman's agreement" to let everyone into their new home without the money changing hands but the one at the bottom, whose fault it was, didn't get it sorted.
Please check when booking removals on how late they will stay. I also had to pay the full amount again on the Saturday to rebook for Monday delivery. (Barclays did refund this).
I've never been homeless before and it wasn't pleasant.

18 years ago, moving day. I think it was about 11am, packing up the lorry for our 12pm completion. I get a phone call from our solicitor, our seller wants to pull out his wife has changed her mind. She’d been bit of a pain and dragged out the sale buy trying to force us to buy their curtains, they weren’t my taste and they were fairly grim, so I’d turned down her ‘kind’ offer and that whole mess had gone on a month - should have been a clue!

I have a lorry 90% loaded, 8 month old baby loaded into the car, and I can see our buyers parked up down the road. And this twat is about to make us homeless, with nowhere for us or our stuff.

Husband stopped me from driving to the new house to kill them so I phoned the estate agency and told them that as he was a director at their company, I would go to every local newspaper and tell them how he had made us homeless an hour before completing. I got my house.

I didn’t feel that bad, they were going into rented and then moving abroad anyway - which they did!. I have no idea why she tried to stop the sale.