To think previous owners of our new house were being unreasonable?

[TheGrumpyAccountant]

Today was moving day. Having sold our house, we packed up and cleaned yesterday so that we could do a final clean/take last minute stuff today. All of our belongings were out and being stored as of yesterday afternoon. We handed in keys at 10.30am this morning and our funds were transferred to the solicitor of our sellers before 11am. At 1.15pm we were told that we could collect the keys to our new house from their solicitors. When we arrived at the new house the previous occupants were just ‘chilling’ in the house (despite having meant to have handed all keys to their solicitors). Standing with my toddler and newborn, when I (very politely) spoke to them they said that they had not yet been told they could collect their keys for their new house and so refused to leave until they knew they had somewhere to go as if something went wrong they’d have nowhere to go. I pointed out that if they don’t leave WE would have nowhere to go. After some quick calls to lawyers they were told they had to leave, so they eventually did.

We are in Scotland in case that makes any difference to legalities etc.

AIBU to this that they were unreasonable in this situation? They’ve really taken the shine off of moving day for me since it all got quite tense and stressy. We are also in the new house over 2 hours later than we could have been.

First house we bought money went though late morning - no keys by 5 pm we were panicking - we were in rented due to move next day lorry booked - DH was stood in estate agent refusing to leave - estate agents were fed up but her daughter insisted she was on the way 6 pm she finally turned up with the keys.

We rushed up there with our then two kids - filthy and full of rubbish in drive.

IL had an estate agent neigbour she had some real horror stories.

Because you can be "right" or you can be happy sometimes.

Chains are messy things and I don't want my kids to be standing on the street whilst I argue the toss on move day, that's not a nice first experience of their new house for them!

Having bought and sold lots of houses, and worked as a mortgage broker for 20 years, it's far more common than you think for transactions not to happen simultaneously – especially when there's a long chain.

Solicitors will always issue stern warnings to sit put until funds have cleared but when everyone is ready to go with movers booked they often just do it. I never heard of a case where it went wrong (not saying it doesn't but it's rare).

Chains are messy things

OP is in Scotland, no chains.

I had a car accident in the morning of our moving day, on my way back from picking up the friends who were helping us with the heavy lifting. Police there, ambulance for me (athsma attack from the stress) and for the idiot who had swerved across the road and hit the cat in front of us, which I then hit (whiplash, one of his illegally bald tyres had blown)

Luckily the house we had sold had a massive front garden laid to lawn, so we just shifted everything onto the lawn room by room & the buyers followed us moving in room by room after it had been swept/vacuumed.

My cousin's move was delayed by 6 hours due to one set of the solicitors having gone out for a team lunch & not returning until just after the banks closed. This was a farm, so we had her elderly disabled mother, 3 cats, 4 dogs, 3 parrots and a small flock of chickens camping out in a knackered caravan on the grounds while she and I moved what we could into one of the outbuildings. The estate agents managed to get hold of the vendors, who had moved to France a couple of weeks before, and they gave them permission to let her have the keys early thank goodness.

People can tend to be a tiny bit more relaxed moving a farm, as you can't always (in fact very rarely!) move a load of livestock in one day so all the horses & cattle had been moved into the fields the day before, and we picked up the rest of the birds and the cat who had gone missing from the old place the next day.

The OP is in Scotland where chains don’t exist.

"Taken the shine off of moving day" 🤣🤣 really?

Surely if a number of people in related transactions are all moving on the same day, it's a 'chain'? If there was no chain, there wouldn't have been anyone still in the house to get in the way!

When we moved we completed but our sellers weren't able to get in their house so even though legally it was our house i did the decent thing and gave them an extra 2 hours till 4 so they could clear the rest of their belongings.

Have you ever been in a chain? The procedure is to complete from top down. The solicitors communicate to do this. This is their fault, not the vendor.

They do exist. The process is just different.

No, you complete from bottom up.

You can't complete from top down as they're the end of the chain.

It’s not squatting if you tell them it’s no problem for them to stay for a bit. Like is it really a big deal?

When I bought my first flat, the sellers failed to hand over the keys. They were deaf so at the time the only way to communicate directly was via fax. . My solicitor suggested going down to see what was going on. They were still packing the van. They said they would be out by 8pm and hand the keys over. I collected them then the next day and went to take a look round that evening but the keys didn’t work . More faxes the next day…. They had accidentally given the solicitor a neighbours key and had accidentally posted out key through the neighbours door. They did have another key however and both solicitors told them (via fax) that they must provide the key. After a lot of faffing they brought the key to the hospital ward I was working on. I went round again , opened the door and the lights didn’t work. The meter had been read and then turned off. Due to the delay in getting in it was another week before we could get it out back on. When it did go on there was still no lights as they had broken a bed side lamp and that had tripped out the electrics. We didn’t know this so had to get an electrician in to check what was going on…. It was a lovely flat though

They do exist. They are just less common and less prone to collapse.

Incorrect. The funds move from top down. The top of chain has no onward purchase.

Jeez.... openly admitting you are a CF too

Still a lot of moving parts

Hope for the best plan for the worst.

I don't like things done down to the wire so make contingencies

That doesn't mean I won't expect everyone to honey their side of things. It just means I plan for life to be a bit chaotic on that day of all days

I don’t know if it’s different in Scotland, but I’ve never heard of a chain being an issue. Once the buyer’s money has cleared then you no longer own the house and shouldn’t be on the property. Technically, anything still on the property at that time belongs to the new owners.

I have always moved the same day, but had movers do the packing, then it’s time to clean, leave a card/champagne for the new owners with instructions for any appliances and we’re off the property and keys handed in. We are not even in the vicinity when the new owners arrive.

That’s terrible OP. Should never happen like that in Scotland. You hand in your keys in the morning and the house is no longer yours end of.

Hope you’re changing the locks op. Fuck knows how many spare sets of keys those cheeky buggers have.

And what people aren’t talking about is what would have happened if they accidentally set fire to the cooker / house. It wasn’t even theirs by this point. Utter madness.

How can funds move from the top of the chain down if the top of the chain have no onward purchase 😆 😆 😆

Funds move up the chain.

Incorrect. The funds move from top down. The top of chain has no onward purchase.

How do they move from top down? I wouldn't have any money to give the next person until the person buying my house had paid me first?? Surely it must be bottom up? The first time buyers transfer the money they are sitting on to the first seller and this passes all the way up the chain house by house until the final sellers get their money and keep it

I might be wrong but in Scotland,I don't think the notion of a chain really exists. The deal is between the one person who is buying and the one who is selling (via their solicitors). Once the funds have been confirmed as exchanged,it's not the new owner's problem where the old owner is going,the house doesn't belong to them anymore.

I mean moving day is just a nightmare anyway! I thought you were gonna be the people I heard in the park today as they were also waiting on their seller to vacate! This was at 2pm.
I was talking about it to my other half, would be far more sensible if an arrangement could be made where the moving took place over several days. Our moving day was pretty hideous as we had pressure from our buyer but our seller wasn't in a rush to vacate. We weren't either really. Ironically our buyer was in rental so actually they had the least urgency out of all of us to move.

There's usually a time on the contract that they need to be out by and if they are still in after that, it's a breach and you can usually charge them interest/additional costs if you really wanted to press it. They were in the wrong. It was legally your house.