Page 12 | Bought house but they’re still in it now!

ItsOnlyRainFFS · 2025-09-26T16:44:59+00:00

So we exchanged contracts last week and completed by 10am today. We vacated our house by 12.30pm as our buyers keen to get in and contract said 2pm. The house we bought was supposed to be ready 2pm but it’s still not ready! Now the seller (house we now own!) is saying they’re going to struggle to empty it by 8pm! And that sounds optimistic. They just don’t sound like they packed up properly. Anything we can do? Solicitor and estate agents shut. We have put most of our stuff in storage - which is shut. We have though thankfully hired medium van which has our essential stuff in it. But we just want to unpack it now. We have 2 kids and have been at a bowling alley and kfc trying to kill time since school. Would we be unreasonable to demand we move in 8pm?

user1471548941 · 27/09/2025 02:31

Your solicitor should have been on this before close of business! We had similar piss taking sellers, ironically they’d already had the keys for their new place for 2 weeks. Our solicitor phoned, tore them a strip and told them it would cost them £1k for every 15 additional minutes they occupied OUR house! They phoned with the keys almost immediately (god knows what they were doing) but I would have quite liked to have earnt a few k out of it, as it was already 5pm and pitch black by the time we could start unloaded and we’d just spent all our savings on the house!

99bottlesofkombucha · 27/09/2025 02:46

themerchentofvenus · 26/09/2025 17:56

Essentially they have failed to complete.

In reality, you need to be "reasonable", as threatening police or anything daft will just prolong things.

I would TELL them that at 7pm, you will be accessing the house and moving your stuff in, and that they need to either put everything onto the driveway to the side, or leave any remaining stuff in one room at the front of the house, then return at 10am to collect it tomorrow. Make it clear that they do NOT have access after 7pm.

If they cannot make this deadline, then you should inform them that they will need to pay for hotel rooms over night for you, along with any additional costs e.g. meals out. If you ate out at KFC, then pass the bill on to their solicitor as they failed to complete on time.

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This and mother of pufflings have it nailed. Go round, tell them options, take photos (it’s your house if they argue!!) and explain if the house isn’t available you will be booking at a hotel because they haven’t left you with any options, they are using your house, and charging them for all costs.

Andithoughtiwasspecial · 27/09/2025 04:27

DelphiniumBlue · 26/09/2025 20:01

As I recall time is not of the essence in a residential conveyancing contract, so you can’t start demanding costs and recompense until and unless a completion notice is served.
Whilst in principle you can’t start demanding ask them to pay your costs arising as a result of their failure to complete on time, you can’t enforce that, and you have minimal leverage to make them pay.
You could try suing after the event but that is costly and time consuming, and you might not get anywhere with that if no completion notice has been served.
Your best bet is to start moving in regardless, and get some mates over to help out the sellers stuff outside.
Hopefully it will all be sorted by the time you read this, OP.
Does it look like they are trying to move out?

Sadly this. Time is not of the essence unless a valid notice to complete has been served. The time in the contract is the time monies should have arrived by not the time for completion.

LalaPaloosa2024 · 27/09/2025 05:41

I had worse than this when I bought my current house. The estate agent told me the Seller needed to stay in MY HOUSE another week. He even went into detail about the Seller’s childcare arrangements etc., and their move to Kent. I said I didn’t care and didn’t want to know about their family situation and I would be proceeding as planned, as was my legal right. The estate agent even tried to talk to me about how I could get a mortgage holiday and rent somewhere to convenience the seller!!! My resounding no was taken badly and I was framed as being difficult. Extraordinary.

I was having none of it, and neither should you. Go and move into your house. The former Seller is now trespassing.

Muffinmam · 27/09/2025 05:51

ItsOnlyRainFFS · 26/09/2025 17:56

Yep we’ll go round as really do need to get kids more settled than this. I will be firm! Didn’t know if this was as much of a piss take as I thought it was but it clearly is!

What ended up happening?

xSideshowAuntSallyXx · 27/09/2025 06:02

I don't get this, they agreed a day for completion. If they weren't going to be ready they should have agreed a later date at the time not on the day. I'd be fuming and pestering the solicitor and estate agent.

I had 2 weeks between exchange and completion, enough time to sort removal guys out and pack up the last of my bits.

Oopsthatismyrealname · 27/09/2025 06:08

We actually did this to someone, albeit we were only about 2 hours late getting everything out. It was horrendous. Our movers were useless, didn't do what they said they'd do, our vendor didn't hand over the keys on time (we were only moving 2 doors down so we thought we'd be able to move some stuff into the van and then move some stuff direct from house to house so it was clear by the time the buyers were due to arrive - we were inexperienced and optimistic and the movers were liars). It was HIDEOUSLY stressful and I was so apologetic and the buyers were really kind, if understandably pretty frustrated. Their movers ended up having to start moving stuff in as we were moving stuff out and I was frantically cleaning behind our movers to make sure it was decent... meanwhile my then 5 year old had a really high temperature and was sitting on a box outside the house with his grandmother looking after him. Awful. But. On NO PLANET would I have told the buyers they would just have to wait to take possession! I was worried they'd never forgive us but they did.

Icebreakhell · 27/09/2025 06:36

I had this with my first house purchase. A tiny cottage. The seller ended up leaving at midnight, also it was left in a filthy state. Luckily I wasn’t moving in straight away.

Ringley · 27/09/2025 06:44

I'm invested.

What happened in the end?

Stinksmum · 27/09/2025 07:11

Happened to me too. I knew something would go wrong because we were we moving on the Friday and when I drove past on the Wednesday I could see all the photos, vases etc. still on the windowsills - I would have expected them to be packed up by then. Their Solicitor asked for us to wait for a couple of hours as they were still packing. We gave them until 6pm and then insisted that was it. It was time to go. Later in the week I discovered the contents of a drinks cabinet in the recycling bin. Managed to fish out the Baileys and a bottle of Champagne to enjoy.

MissScarletInTheBallroom · 27/09/2025 07:13

Stinksmum · 27/09/2025 07:11

Happened to me too. I knew something would go wrong because we were we moving on the Friday and when I drove past on the Wednesday I could see all the photos, vases etc. still on the windowsills - I would have expected them to be packed up by then. Their Solicitor asked for us to wait for a couple of hours as they were still packing. We gave them until 6pm and then insisted that was it. It was time to go. Later in the week I discovered the contents of a drinks cabinet in the recycling bin. Managed to fish out the Baileys and a bottle of Champagne to enjoy.

They put a bottle of champagne in the recycling bin??

Francestein · 27/09/2025 07:23

So even if they get their shit out, they're not going to have it clean... Let them know that you are going to be charging them the cost of a commercial clean, the hourly rate for your movers after 10am plus 50 pounds per hour.

Phonicshaskilledmeoff · 27/09/2025 07:28

Did you get in last night?

Lucelady · 27/09/2025 07:30

We had our buyers move in for ten days and not complete. They refused to pay over a bookcase door that had specifically been excluded. The agent said they'd paid and gave them keys. We ended up in litigation. The agent sided with them and trashed our reputation in the town. Sometimes it's the removals that cock up and under estimate. I've had that a few times.

AllJoyAndNoFun · 27/09/2025 07:32

Francestein · 27/09/2025 07:23

So even if they get their shit out, they're not going to have it clean... Let them know that you are going to be charging them the cost of a commercial clean, the hourly rate for your movers after 10am plus 50 pounds per hour.

There’s no legal requirement for it to be clean. It’s just a courtesy.

Shoxfordian · 27/09/2025 07:42

Hope you moved in op
Definitely phone the solicitors

Cuwins · 27/09/2025 07:44

AllJoyAndNoFun · 27/09/2025 07:32

There’s no legal requirement for it to be clean. It’s just a courtesy.

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I was just going to ask if that’s a requirement

ednaclouda · 27/09/2025 07:47

Itsonlyrain. OP what happened are you in now ?

InNewYorkNoShoes · 27/09/2025 07:55

Its no surprise people don’t bother to pack, clean or empty their old house when it seems so many people let them. Leaving them to pack up slowly and paying your own movers £2k extra or paying for a hotel and running up other huge costs is insane. Plus the migraine inducing stress!
If this happened to me I would be there at the agreed time and throwing the boxes into the garden and shoving the people out the door. It’s completely takes the piss out of the removals workers too as they get low wages and probably don’t want to wait around for ages either.
When our new house keys were lost by the estate agent for an hour or so we bought the removal workers teas and coffees and gave them £10 cash each. It cost us over £100 but we didn’t want someone else to be out of pocket because of someone else’s mistake.

MikeRafone · 27/09/2025 08:08

This happened to someone I know Only the house they were moving into the people hadn't packed a single thing on the Friday night and said - sue us if you don't like it but we will not be out until Monday evening.

Obviously it mean they had a lorry full of belongings and nowhere to go - so they had to find a hotel for 3 nights

The couple they were purchasing from were both legal, so no point in taking legal action as it would cost more to get back less

surprisingly their mail found its way into file 13 and never moved

socks1107 · 27/09/2025 08:10

Hope you managed to get in last night

january1244 · 27/09/2025 08:12

It’s so hard to get the money back though. We ended up having to hire two large skips (£700) as well as pack up boxes of stuff and leave it with neighbours for the sellers to collect later. The house was in an awful state, couldn’t have stayed there, mountains of rubbish and we had a baby. We weren’t able to recover the money, the costs of the solicitor would have been too much and they didn’t think they’d be able to without us going to court as the sellers just refused to pay

InNewYorkNoShoes · 27/09/2025 08:16

january1244 · 27/09/2025 08:12

It’s so hard to get the money back though. We ended up having to hire two large skips (£700) as well as pack up boxes of stuff and leave it with neighbours for the sellers to collect later. The house was in an awful state, couldn’t have stayed there, mountains of rubbish and we had a baby. We weren’t able to recover the money, the costs of the solicitor would have been too much and they didn’t think they’d be able to without us going to court as the sellers just refused to pay

Exactly. When everyone is advising to go to the most expensive hotel and charge the sellers etc it’s soooooo unlikely they will get the money back.

DebsA1 · 27/09/2025 08:24

They are in breach of contract which states vacant possession on completion. A strong solicitors letter needed. I do hope you get it sorted.

Silverbirchleaf · 27/09/2025 08:28

Ringley · 27/09/2025 06:44

I'm invested.

What happened in the end?

Me too.