selling our house-leaving curtains question?

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Hi. We have almost completed our house sale. We have moved out into a rented house so our old house is now empty. On the fixtures and fittings form we said we were leaving the curtains. However, the curtains in our rented house are pretty hideous so e now want some of our curtains from our (nearly) sold house. My thoughts were to take the curtains we want and replace them with some old ones we have, which will fit the windows and therefore provide privacy expected from curtains. So we are going to leave curtains as specified in the form, just not the curtains that were there when our buyers viewed. Is this allowed? What would you do? Thanks.x

Did you have ANY discussions with your buyer that included talking about the curtains?

If not, then go for it so long as the replacement curtains are a "reasonable fit".

Did the buyers actually ask about you leaving the curtains/pay any extra for for them/agree to something else in return for you leaving the curtains?

If they did, I reckon they will be expecting the curtains they saw. And tbh I do think that would be the normal meaning of the form.

If they didn't ever ask about them, and you were just leaving them because you thought you had no need for them, then I would feel free to do the swap. Technically that's probably not compliant with the F&F form (which is part of your sale contract so is binding) but I doubt they'll make a fuss if they never specifically asked about the curtains.

I'd try and match the room so they don't look really out of place - e.g. flowery curtains in a boys room.

We did this, but actually bought cheep argos / dunelm curtains in a very similar colour to the originals. Slightly different situation tho, as we part exchanged, and the builder specified we left all curtains, but the people who bought it off the builder were going to strip the place bare, so really didn't care.

Nope, we have never corresponded specifically about the curtains, we just ticked the'yes'box on the fixtures and fittings form to say curtains were included in the sale. Its not that they were expensive or anything, just that they're a heck of a lot better than the ones in our rented house and were lined so kept it darker for the children in their rooms (the rented ones are so thin the sunlight just pours into the room very early in the morning). We will be leaving curtains, so technically, as the curtains have not been specifically mentioned in the sales particulars, we won't be breaking the fixtures and fittings agreement we signed. We just didn't say 'which'curtains we would be leaving.

Well nextphase, this is what I was going to do originally, but when we moved I found an old box of curtains that were left in our first house when we moved in that I had forgotten about. So,I thought what's the point in spending money unnecessarily when we could use those. Admittedly, one pair are a rich orange velvet (!?!) but the room I am planning to put them in is brown, so it could work (sort of). They're just not what I would choose, but who's to say if we left the originals the new people wouldn't redecorate the room and change them anyway?

you have filled in and signed a form, which is a part of your contract, saying that you will leave the curtains. They have viewed the house and have seen the curtains that you said you would leave.

If you want to make a change, you need to ask the buyers if they will let you have the curtains. You may wish to offer a modest payment.

Ok,I see your point. I will ask our solicitor where we stand on this and take their advice. If they say we are ok to take the original ones as long as we DO leave adequate curtains, we will change them, if not, we will leave them. Thanks for all your thoughts on this.x