Bought house but they’re still in it now!

[ItsOnlyRainFFS]

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?

Moved house a number of times, mid afternoon always seemed about the time we were able to gain access. 8pm at the earliest,😱 is taking the piss.

Glad OP is in her new home.

We had an issue recently selling a probate property of an elderly relative, several hundred miles away. We’d cleared the house of all the personal stuff, but left the furniture and some paintings for agents photos and the viewings. Two weeks before completion DH organised various organisations to come and pick up the furniture - a furniture resale specialist for a couple of nice sellable pieces, a charity for anything that was still fit for use but not auction material, and the LA bulk waste service for everything else. He went down for three days to let them in and supervise, and every single one let him down. The auction house and the charity just didn’t turn up and the cherry on the cake was the LA turning up at just before 5pm on a Friday and couldn’t take anything because the van was full (even though he’d itemised everything for them to take so they should have known how much van space they’d need.)

He ended up staying for ten days trying to get it all cleared, and finally managed it the day before completion, so he could at least run a hoover around and left a bottle of wine for the new owners. But it was incredibly stressful and at one point he was threatening to just have a big bonfire in the back garden and burn the lot.

Why is your system so ridiculous?

you have to do a closing inspection here the night before you close. Meaning that the people need to be out the day before closing. Even then, very few people actually move in on closing day because it can take a while for the banks to do what they are supposed to.

Most people tend to have a bridging loan for a week where they own both houses. But that’s just standard.

ive never heard of sellers refusing to move out

Similar situation to us. We were moving on the Friday and getting married the next day on the Saturday. I had a phonecall to say contracts had exchanged, money had been transferred etc at about 10am on the Friday morning so expected the keys around lunchtime. Well, they were still faffing around in the house at around 3pm, the wife and the grown up daughter standing watching whilst the husband moved things around, instead of all mucking in and helping move things out of the house. The guy who was helping us with his van walked into the house and started putting our things in there and if I remember rightly, anything of there's in his way he put out on the drive.

He ended up emptying his van of our stuff and loading their stuff in it to take to their new house, just to move them quicker. They dawdled all the way through the process, so expected nothing better.

They said they'd leave curtains and a few other bits behind so we could buy new stuff at our convenience after the wedding. We got in the house and discovered they'd stripped it bare, even taking the hooks off the curtain tracks so they weren't usable! We had towels covering the windows for the first few days until we could get out after the wedding and replace stuff.

well, unless the former owners stay in the property for 10 years, they aren't getting squatters rights!

I wanted to add that a friend of ours used to run a removals company and the whole thing was so shambolic, relying on guys working cash in hand when needed, that both times we moved I insisted we use a professional company. And even then we had problems - at the last move, the crew leader was clearly drinking our booze, and i mentioned before that on the previous move one lad just got fed up and went home.

But if it's a proper company, they have back up options, complaint procedures, properly paid staff, insurance - our friend's van often wouldn't start and he employed really dodgy people. I refused to use him!!

You should let your solicitor know so that they can be charged a penalty for breach of contract. Otherwise how will they learn?

Had you’re in and good luck with your new house

We had similar years ago. We weren't planning on moving into the house straightaway (fixer upper) so the previous owners thought they could take their time about moving out. I think they planned to do it over the weekend!

We walked in through the front door with our box of essentials (kettle, tea, milk etc), settled ourselves in the kitchen with hot drinks and watched them. They speeded up considerably then and were gone within an hour. We allowed them to leave some bits in the garage which they collected the next week.

They are actually breaking the contract. This happened to us. We found out too late but your solicitor can send them a fine for this. They are totally out of order anyway, absolute piss takers

Walk in to your house and put your belongings inside.

Read the updates.

It’s legally yours and they are in breach of contract. Hopefully you took photos and records of everything. You can recover any costs from them, so if you did book a hotel, or have to pay extra a storage costs, bill them. Your solicitor can advise.

P.S. This is why you should never move house on a Friday! If anything goes wrong it can take the whole weekend to sort out. Far better to move midweek when everything is open the next day.

same thing happened to my parents years ago. My Dad just said we own the house, get out, we’re moving in. And they did. I think they have them until the next day to come back and get the rest of their stuff.

Check your contract - there should be a fine that they have to pay your for every day the house is not empty. Don’t engage directly if it’s stressful, just get your solicitor to advise that you’ll be actioning the clause. You might end up getting quite a lot of money! Happened to my sibling and the vendor had to pay £1000 for leaving furniture

This... once completed the house is legally yours! The cheek!

On the other hand, it's so hard. Once when I was supposed to be out and wasn't, my buyers actually loaded their car up and helped me move. They drove my stuff to my new house, on the other side of town.

You can only claim costs if your solicitor serves a notice to complete. Why didn’t they OP?

They were just dozy and "didn't think I'd mind". Yes, they do walk among us!

A similar thing happened to us…. We ended up helping the couple pack their van…

Oh it's absolutely a piss take OP and their behaviour is appalling.
If this happened to me I would be far more direct with them and then seeking compensation .

This happened to us, we were the one taking ages.

I felt extremely bad, and we were trying our best to get everything out. It's not something we were used to doing, and therefore didn't prepare properly. I would say just stand at the door, that would help put pressure on them. They did that to us, and it made us feel worse, but we definitely felt the pressure.

At 2pm yesterday they were in breach of contract. Should you move again, you get onto your lawyer and estate agent at 2pm and get them to fix it for you. I would also still email your lawyer and advise what time vacant possession was given as you will likely be due compensation (depending on where in the country you are and what your contract says)

How awful for you! Moving is stressful enough without these complications! And eith children too!

Something similar happened to friends, 2 ladies in 80s. Eventually, they realised that by the time they gained access, it was going to be too late to try to unpack & set up for the night.
They booked into a cheap hotel & tackled the move the next day, having had some sleep & a hotel breakfast.
Not ideal, by a long way, but made the best of the very unsatisfactory situation they found themselves in.
I hope you're able to resolve this frustrating, infuriating situation without a major meltdown.

Book into a hotel for tonight. New owners should be responsible for hotel and extra cost if any storage. They signed a contract .