Solicitors raising queries before exchange: What's the weirdest you've heard of?

[Madmotherintheattic]

In your previous or current purchases?
Or what did they miss that you discovered later?

The buyer of my late mum's house wanted to complete in ten days and did not take out a mortgage, no survey nor even a local search. She then came back to me with an additional query asking if I had ever spotted any rats near the nearby beck which I could not see from the house. Hope no-one asks me this when we put ours up for sale because my dh saw a huge rat in our garage last week. Shudder.

Also, previous sale question was is there any noise from the nearby pub? What do you think? How could you answer no, you are not responsible for visitors to a public house. If you don't want a house near a pub, then don't buy one.

When working in conveyancing, one client expressed upset at the covenants on the property he was buying preventing him raising pigs. This was on a large family housing estate.

We weren't asked anything especially strange but the purchaser's solicitor decided to wait until 10 days before the expected exchange and completion date to start asking questions.
It had taken almost 6 months to get that far and the mortgage offer for the person at the start of the chain was about to expire.
It was as if he suddenly thought, ey up, I'd better do something to earn my exorbitant fee.

I have just had my buyers solicitor state that we have no legal access to our house from the road. They won't accept that it's a public footpath that is used by 14 houses and 200 allotment holders and has been used for over 100 years. They keep going on about it. There is always about a week between the enquiry and it's just dragging on.

We agreed to buy, agreed the fixtures and fittings list then received a long list of things we may like to buy at extra cost
Trees in the garden
Shrubs in the garden
The hall, stairs and landing carpet
Light fittings
Fitted Wardrobes

We said no to the lot. They dug up the shrubs and took up The carpets and left us with broken light fittings, no bulbs though. They removed one set of fitted wardrobes, then left us with a set that was falling apart. She moved into a little bungalow so lord know what she did with them.

Elsie in my last house we had a covenant that stated we couldn't keep livestock. Didn't stop one of the houses on the estate keeping a sheep in their back garden for a while. They put it in a giant pair of knickers as well

Hahahahah Digging up shrubs and taking fitted wardrobes... Were they just assholes or did they feel screwed on the price? There's nowt so queer as folk buying/selling a house.

It was an old lady, moving out of the family home into a little retirement bungalow, she'd been perfectly fine whenever we saw her. Now I come to think about it, she had to pay for some repair work to the roof before we exchanged, so perhaps she was trying to recoup that cost?

I'm going through this at the moment. Had an email last week from buyers solicitors asking me for the building regs for the extension. The house has never been extended

We were asked if we had any problems with Radiation. (Milton Keynes) she was stalling waiting for her mortgage offer.

The sale of my first flat was halted on the day we were supposed to exchange and move because the solicitor suddenly wanted to know if there was asbestos in the communal areas. I had to pay £400 for a survey and delay the move by a month to be told no asbestos! This question was never raised when I moved in four years previously. FFS. I had to move in with my parents for that month as all packed up and furniture dismantled!

My friend was selling her first floor studio flat and was asked by solicitor to prove there was no right of way through the property!

The buyer of my parents house sent three pages of questions. Some of the better ones were:

1. Could we guarantee that the ground floor extension (built in the late 60s, well before we owned the house) had adequate foundations for them to build on top.
2. Had anyone been murdered in the property

3 was the property haunted. 4 where is the tv aeriel - it was visible in the estate agent photos 5 how to work the cat flap

They were special

therein: wetting myself laughing. They should have said just keep the cat flap closed alright, it's how the ghost gets in.

madmotherintheattic I laughed so much at that I choked on my tea!

Is the property haunted

Justdonteven asking about radiation in Milton Keynes isn't at all daft - local ironstone deposits can emit radon gas which is radioactive:

www.milton-keynes.gov.uk/environmental-health-and-trading-standards/pollution/radon-information