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.

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.

No from bottom up…..

So, when you get the completion call on the home you’re buying, which home do you then own?

I assume the new home? Because you’ve now completed?

So which home do your buyers own? The one that they’ve completed on? Which used to be the one you owned.

Don’t be silly….

How can you move from top down….. you wouldn’t have the funds!

So top of the chain is buying for £500,000 (a new build) they have a mortgage arranged for £100,000, and are selling their current home for £400,000 to the person in the chain below them, where is the additional money coming from to complete on the new build, if it has not been given to them by the person they are selling their home to? In which case if the person below had paid their £400,000 for the house then it’s theirs, isn’t it?

But do explain how it completes from top downwards, without the funds being paid for the new build?

No they couldn't.

You mug 😆

Same as in England!

Haha wonder if your seller was the same one we bought our house from?! Funds transferred & call from solicitors to confirm house was ours at 11am-ish.

Husband goes to collect keys; not been handed to agent yet. Goes to new house to see what’s going on. Seller is apparently at different agent waiting for their keys which she eventually got at 4pm. She finally brings our key to agent at 5.30pm. Finally gets out of the house at 9.45pm.

I said to husband it was a bit of luck that a) we didn’t have the movers booked for completion day and b) it was him over there not me as I wouldn’t have put up with “oh but what if we don’t have anywhere to go”

I might have been a bit more tolerant if she’d been less of a complete and utter dickish nightmare through the whole sale process.

I’m in Scotland. Didn’t bridging loans use to avoid this problem in Scotland? It’s decades since we moved, bit it certainly kept things easier even if an extra expense.

Of course it is. OP has handed over hundreds of thousands of pounds for an asset which she now legally owns. CF is illegally preventing OP and her family from using their new home.

Its easy to sanctimoniously say "be kind'' when you're not the one standing there with a lorry full of furniture, kids and pets. I bet if it was actually happening to you you wouldnt be quite so laid back about it all.

Incidentally, what do you class as "for a bit"? How can you possibly know how long they will stay? You'd rather "be kind" to a family of CFs than your own children?

Could claim squatters rights though

They could not. This isn't Spain. Squatting in a residential property is an offence.

When we moved last year our solicitor told us there’s a 1pm rule now, regardless of the timing of completions everyone has to be out of their house by 1pm on moving day. I think this makes good sense.

To the people who said they do not have chains, if you are selling your house and buying another on the same day, that is a chain, albeit just 1 link of a chain.
The problem is that many people think the two contracts are the same, whereas the buying and selling are for 2 separate contracts.
The alternative to a chain is first time buyers (who have no house to sell), or a deceased person/or moving to a Care Home/abroad, who are not actually buying somewhere.
Otherwise, usually people need the funds from the sale of their house to fund their purchase. The alternative to this is to a) either have sufficient savings to purchase a house outright (Yes, I do know someone who is in this position), or b) to sell your house and rent temporarily. And I know several people who did this, thus they had the funds available for the purchase.
I also know someone who did his own conveyancing (without solicitors, and totally legal in England), but this actually made the logistics of transferring the funds / depositing the keys, etc a bit of a nightmare.

You're right. I'm in Scotland and was recently in a chain of four. Didn't get my keys until 5 p.m

Where are you? I moved last year and our Sellers were still packing at 4.30pm!
We had been ready since 9am, everything in the moving van - completely ready to go!
We got a call off their estate agent a couple of towns away at about 2pm to collect the keys so off we went. Only to be told when we got there that there had been a mistake and they didn't have the keys (how can you think you have keys you don't have 😤).
I gave up trying to deal with the professionals and drove straight to the new house to speak to the sellers, not to confront them but just to find out what was happening! They are lovely people and explained that they were moving themselves in a van so 5pm would have been the earliest they could be out - their solicitors were aware but hadn't bothered to tell us!
It was a very long, very awful day that culminated in us sleeping in the sofa for the first night as we ran out of time to make our beds up (after doing two doubles for the children!). We had everything unpacked and livable within 3 days and moving day now is just a memory.

Am amazed you’ve got time to post haven’t you got boxes to unpack? Relax and enjoy your new home.

I am shocked by some of these replies. The chain moves from the bottom up. You sign a contract to agree vacant possession, so when the sale completes you get out. This exact situation happened to a relative. Sale completed, moving lorry arrived at new house....owner still inside and refusing to leave until their onward purchase had completed. She refused to let anyone in and lots of calls had to be made to solicitors and agents to explain to the vendor to get out. She did, but in a huff. Solicitors had to explain she would be in breach of contract.

I think solicitors don't explain to people their obligations as part of the process. Our solicitor and agent told us to fill up the lorry and get out of our house by midday. We then sat in Sainsburys carpark waiting for the call, the lorry went to wait outside the new house. Call received, keys collected and we moved in. Our vendors had thankfully done the same thing.

It's complete cheeky fuckery to do otherwise and people are either badly informed or believe the rules don't apply to them. If their onward purchase failed to complete for any reason, then they would need to find a hotel, stay with relatives etc.

Exactly this! If the chain doesn’t complete, where it fails is the person that needs to find alternative accommodation. Which is likely to be towards the top of the chain if it’s a time thing.

It was mildly inconvenient,not the end of the world. When our friends moved they rocked up at the their new house and the people hadn't even started packing up the house,now that's something to get pissed off about!
We didn't get our keys until gone 5pm as the solicitor forgot to release the money,we were stuck waiting for hours with the vans outside. Things happen and you're in now,just enjoy your new home.

Yes and infact a good solicitor would advise against letting the vendor stay in your new house as "goodwill" gesture. Are they going to pay you rent? Is your new home insurance valid? What if they flood the place overnight? Are the terms of the mortgage valid? Lots of legal questions and issues. It's unfortunate Doris and Bill's sale didn't complete, but that is their problem to sort out.

They had no right to be there everything was completed and transferred, they were stood in OPs house so of course they had to leave.

Yet again, so many people with so little understanding of the law! The house belonged to OP. The previous owners had zero right to be there. They wouldn’t have been insured to be there and any damage they caused would have become OP’s problem. They should not have been there when OP arrived and I’m not surprised it ruined her arrival in her new home. People work long and hard to buy a home and completion/moving in should not be tainted by idiots who suddenly don’t want to move out and think they’re above the law. They should be fined for the time they overstayed or charged extortionate rent. This kind of situation would soon stop!

No, the money being in your solicitors account is considered the same as it being in yours. Once completion is done you have to be out, anything else is pure cheeky fuckery

As she stood with a toddler and newborn- seriously @TheBerry

When we moved we were going into a hotel because of a gap between our sale and purchase completing. All our stuff had gone into storage so we only had final bits to load into the car on moving day.

The purchasers for our house turned up mid morning with their van but we hadn't been told that the funds had landed in our account. They were quite surprised that we were still there but I told them we weren't leaving until we had full confirmation that all was in order and that we could hand over the keys. They ended up lounging in our front garden until we were ready to hand over which was early afternoon. Things were getting a little tense but our lawyer emphasised that we should stay put until everything had gone through.