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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want to cry re new house?

197 replies

meow1989 · 30/09/2021 12:53

Or more like, wibu to expect seller to be a decent human being?

Completed on our dream forever home end of August. We left our house spotless, left flowers and advice re local area plus my number in case new people needed anything. Our seller however left us with the following issues:

  • tonnes of rubbish including a double garage door, building materials and granite slabs behind outbuilding. His response was (not true) that most of it had been there when he moved in so it wasn't his problem to sort.
  • missing plants dug up and taken
  • rubbish in house - so far I'm up to 7 different types of tiles in boxes plus skirting boards, flooring, insulation etc
  • Windows that don't lock from the outside and don't close properly (costing 4k to replace, we did know they were misted and would need doing equally but not straight away)
  • bodge job building bits (he is a builder!) Like fist sized holes where blinds had been installed, a broken TV bracket installed into the wall rather than on to, paint on floor and windows
  • broken blinds, broken bathroom cabinets
  • a boiler that I've just found out has been leaking for quite some time (noted by plumber who is fixing leak in ceiling which also seems to have been bodged and covered up from previous leaks)

Aibu or is this par for the course? We hadn't budgeted for a fixer Upper!

OP posts:
thebookworm1 · 30/09/2021 19:00

Unfortunately ther

thebookworm1 · 30/09/2021 19:03

Unfortunately there’s nothing that can be done. When I moved in to my new home not only did the seller not hand in the key on time but they’d actively trashed the house from top to bottom and left it full of broken furniture. It turned out to be an acrimonious divorce situation and the guy and gone on a bender.
It was a nightmare. Lesson learnt - next time I’ll get a professional clean as n included in the contract with a handover inspection.

GlumyGloomer · 30/09/2021 19:14

@meow1989 I was in the same boat 2 years ago. Sellers left us with a heap of junk, broken electrics, dodgy boiler, and occasional visits from bailiffs. Solicitors didn't even answer our email about the breech of contract.
Two years on we've got a new boiler, removed all the junk and done one bathroom. More works pending in the next few months. Its been a hard slog, and sometimes I've absolutely hated this house, but other times I see what it can be, in time.
Solidarity, it will get better with time. We just need to be patient.

Original poster
meow1989 · 30/09/2021 19:35

Sorry so many of us have had it (and some worse!) Seem to be a lot of scummy sellers out there! I currently have a hole in my ceiling anf the landing floor is being ripped up tomorrow 🤦‍♀️ but I am determined to spend my child free day next week sugar soaping and lining my office so I even out the rubbish with some positivity!

OP posts:
DarlingFell · 30/09/2021 19:35

@ThreeLittleDots

He is legally obliged to pay for the removal of rubbish. Doesn't matter if it was there when he moved in.

Unless plants were specified in the property information form, they're not included in the sale.

Discovering bodges and faulty boiler - all normal I'm afraid unless you go over the place with a fine-toothed comb / builder / plumber before exchange of contracts. Even surveys miss a great deal and are worded defensively so there's no come-backs.

Not correct re plants, plants and trees are considered to be fixtures, by nature of growing in the ground
Cherrysoup · 30/09/2021 19:35

Sellers left a leaking toilet. The bathroom flooring was multiple layers of (wet) vinyl/laminate. I was gagging taking it out. They failed to declare a mouse issue, plus a neighbour dispute (she has severe mh problems and endlessly called the police about their alleged misdemeanours), an old hearth in the bedroom which was unbalanced. All the wallpaper on the ‘feature’ walls was falling off, I think they glued it on with Pritt-stick!

DarlingFell · 30/09/2021 19:37

@Stormsy

Homebuyers surveys aren't worth the bother. I would never buy a house without getting a full survey.
I couldn't agree more.
DarlingFell · 30/09/2021 19:40

@Insert1x20p

Honestly, I've never bought a house, got the keys, gone in and not thought "FML". I'd just move on. I once bought a house where there was a TV shaped patch on the top of a cupboard where the previous owner had just painted round it and the garden was colonised by feral foxes.
Feral foxes...foxes that had escaped from a domestic environment? How strange...
BoredZelda · 30/09/2021 19:40

Discovering bodges and faulty boiler - all normal I'm afraid unless you go over the place with a fine-toothed comb

In scotland the boiler must have a service as part of the sale. Even before that, if it were faulty the seller has to fix it within a month of the sale. I’m surprised the same isn’t true in England.

Tiredmum100 · 30/09/2021 19:43

I could have written your post OP. We haven't long moved into our new home. Loads of rubbish left in the garden, old doors, wooden rotted Wendy house etc, a trailer load. The worst thing has been the shower that has clearly been leaking for years and the damp it has caused and the problems with the electric sockets it has caused.

Ponypizzy · 30/09/2021 19:52

We bought our house from friends of close relatives and I can’t believe the number of times I had to go to the tip with stuff dumped in the garden. The cooker was so filthy and rattled I replaced it straight away. There were numerous things and it seems every time we move we end up replacing the boiler within 12 months. One friend moved into a house and the boiler was condemned the same weekend so he had no heating or hot water for him and 2 small DD he has shared custody for. There was literally nothing he could do when he went back to his solicitor and he had to fork out for new boiler and part new system.

ChocolateCakeYum · 30/09/2021 19:54

Some sellers are just shitty people unfortunately.

The house we bought was beautiful when we looked around. Come moving in day (when we eventually got the keys. We had to instruct our solicitor to get her out of the house - we turned up to move in and she was still in the property barely packed!) was a disgusting shit hole.

To name but a few problems:

  • She’d made a massive hole in the garden decking. It was so big we had to rip it all out and start again.

  • Left dog mess and dog hair all over the house

  • Repainted several of the rooms in violent colours (think neon pink and bright purples)

  • Ripped up the wooden flooring in the back reception room (ok that wasn’t too bad in the end as we eventually discovered there was some beautiful flagstone flooring under 50 odd layers of shitty lino but still, she shouldn’t have done it)

  • Took out some water pipes needed to connect appliances to the drains.

In short she wrecked my fucking house and it took over a year to get her to pay damages and even then it was hardly anything. I still don’t love my house as much as I should because it wasn’t the house we bought and took a lot of money to put right.

user1487194234 · 30/09/2021 20:56

In scotland the boiler must have a service as part of the sale. Even before that, if it were faulty the seller has to fix it within a month of the sale.
That's not true

user1487194234 · 30/09/2021 21:04

The difficulty is that the sort of people who leave a property in a state are not going to respond to a request from your solicitor to make things right
So your solicitor writes to their solicitor,the sellers deny liability,or refuse to engage in the process
In that case there's nothing your solicitor can do apart from advising you to raise court proceedings which is seldom worth the candle

TSSDNCOP · 30/09/2021 21:27

Having moved into two filthy houses next time I'm booking a cleaning company before I move in.

bigbaggyeyes · 30/09/2021 21:38

I feel your pain op. We've been to the top with a car load of rubbish every day for the last two weeks. They left shite EVERYWHERE. Basically stuff they simply didn't want or couldn't be arsed to take with them. Pots, plants, building materials, old bits of plastic, buckets, old blinds etc etc

Lightswitch123 · 30/09/2021 21:43

I've seen this happen a lot sadly, particularly recently as seems some people who are in a mad rush- offering after 1 viewing etc crazy!

Lightswitch123 · 30/09/2021 21:45

@ChocolateCakeYum

Some sellers are just shitty people unfortunately.

The house we bought was beautiful when we looked around. Come moving in day (when we eventually got the keys. We had to instruct our solicitor to get her out of the house - we turned up to move in and she was still in the property barely packed!) was a disgusting shit hole.

To name but a few problems:

  • She’d made a massive hole in the garden decking. It was so big we had to rip it all out and start again.

  • Left dog mess and dog hair all over the house

  • Repainted several of the rooms in violent colours (think neon pink and bright purples)

  • Ripped up the wooden flooring in the back reception room (ok that wasn’t too bad in the end as we eventually discovered there was some beautiful flagstone flooring under 50 odd layers of shitty lino but still, she shouldn’t have done it)

  • Took out some water pipes needed to connect appliances to the drains.

In short she wrecked my fucking house and it took over a year to get her to pay damages and even then it was hardly anything. I still don’t love my house as much as I should because it wasn’t the house we bought and took a lot of money to put right.

Shock what! Poor you! She sounds nuts- why on earth would you repaint!?!
Charlize43 · 30/09/2021 22:12

It doesn't sound too bad. I wouldn't expect to move into a house and not have to do anything to it.

Skysblue · 30/09/2021 22:48

I'm sorry OP, that sucks. There are two things here:

  1. The rubbish he left. Legally he was obliged to empty the property, it's irrelevant if the stuff was there when he bought it. He completed a pre-sale questionnaire as part of the sale and if anything was being left it should have been listed on there and if it is not you ought to be able to get him to pay for the costs of removing it - although I don't know how that could be enforced. Speak to your solicitor. Perhaps if they threaten him enough he might collect it. If he's a builder he must have access to strong men and trucks.
  1. The stuff that is broken eg windows, boiler, bodged building work. This I'm afraid you just have to accept. Legally as the buyer you buy the property 'sold as seen' and unless he actually lied to you / on the paperwork, then you bought it as it is. It's like going to a second-hand shop and buying a broken plate and then complaining to the shop that it's broken. That's true, but it is what you bought.

You solicitor is probably rubbish, the vast majority of residential conveyancing solicitors are (as anyone good goes into a different area of law when they can actually make money). But you should be able to get the paperwork from them, and you could always take it to a litigation solicitor (who won't be rubbish) if there's anything they can do. They'd almost certainly do a free consultation for you, but probably just tell you that the only way to claim the rubbish disposal cost is to sue the seller, and that's unlikely to be cost effective :(

I think the best thing to do is chalk it up to experience, spend the money to get rid of the rubbish / fix windows and boiler and then try to forget about it, not easy I know.

People are scum with property sales, it's very strange. There's a woman in my town whose behaviour on a property transaction ended up costing me £90000. I still see her around sometimes and my blood boils every time.

gypsy22 · 01/10/2021 17:29

I sympathise
Similar occurrences on every house I have bought - boilers faulty electrics damage crap left etc etc we got house clearance people in to clear the loft and garden in this house
And we left everything immaculate on the one we sold
Surveys don’t cover everything
We even tried to sue thesurveyor for not highlighting a major floor issue but they can wheedle their way out of things with their terms and conditions
Some people are just shites and you have to grit your teeth and fix it and remember why you bought the house and keep your vision for it in mind !

Inthemuckheap · 01/10/2021 17:30

I bought a house that a builder had lived in for many years - bodge it and scarper springs to mind. I naively thought a house where a builder lived would have been really well done.

I think they do their good work for clients and just bodge the places they live in.

Also arrived (from abroad) to a garden which was missing many plants. Was so exhausted from move that I just got on with it and spent £'000's sorting out his shoddy work. We're still here 27 years later so worth it in the end.

Never again!

HouseMoveHell2021 · 01/10/2021 17:31

I FINALLY moved into my house in May after almost a year and the chain almost falling through several times.... and we are dealing with many similar issues...

tbh though - I knew we were going to have to do work on the house - a few things are a bit annoying but we had made sure we went around several times and looked at stuff! She left a whole load of rubbish in the outbuilding which I was a bit annoyed about - but I also knew that even the estate agent didn't think it would happen and that she would pull out - so I was just glad to get in here. It WILL cost me far more than I had planned- but I love the house and location so have just accepted that I need to accept what is!

Beastieboys · 01/10/2021 17:36

Home buyers survey is just really a tool for your lenders to ensure that they'll get their money back if you default....

Ellyesprit · 01/10/2021 17:36

Are you sure that’s not the house we’ve moved into? Seems to be ok to leave whatever you like and dirty perhaps it’s their standard of some people

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