Would you charge your buyers for curtains and blinds?

[ESpressoNotEXpresso]

Hi,

Just that really.

Our sellers are asking quite a lot of money for them. Because the windows are bigger than average and were custom made, rather than declining, we counter offered and they came back, I think, still too high.

Would you charge?... Did you pay?

Thank you!

When we bought our current house, vendors charged us for items like mirror and loo roll holder (fixed to wall!) in the bathroom! It seemed unbelievably petty to me - they were literally asking a fiver for the loo roll holder! Who could be bothered?! I was privately amused at their absurdity but paid up because I CBA to get into conflict about it.

There are a couple of light fittings here that we will take with us when we do sell, they're not for sale. They will be made good and everything else will be left, as will blinds and carpets. I'd be bewildered at the idea of taking up the fitted carpets to take somewhere else, what a ball ache. We have a free standing fridge freezer and I'd take that if the next place didn't have one, or leave it if it did (unless specifically asked not to, in which case I'd take it of course).

If someone waffled on to me about their 1.8k curtains I'd just tell them to take them. I wouldn't doubt the amount they'd paid but the chances of me liking them are slim and I'd not be keen on paying whatever the seller thinks their 1.8k curtains are worth second hand (I'd put money on the fact it would be vastly more than their true second hand value).

Is it even legal to leave bare wires everywhere?

We have just moved house. Carpets and flooring in my experience are always included! Curtains and window coverings are negotiable. When our buyer asked we said we would include for the asking price, they did not offer the asking price so we named a reasonable offer. They declined but we negotiated resulting in them upping their offer, so they did indeed pay for them. Our vendors said that they were not included and individually priced them in the fixtures and fittings. We negotiated after the survey came back with some minor issues and they ended up including them as part of the negotiations It is usually a point of negotiation.

I agree that it is incredibly petty to charge charge. Surely these items should be built into the price of the house? Or if there's something you really want to take, and it's reasonable to do so, make sure that you inform the buyers with plenty of notice, and you are obliged to 'make good' if relevant.

@giantkitten

They had mostly been secured with those little plastic dice thingies.
I can't imaging the amout of effort it took to do this.

Some rude words were said. It was also February so dark and freezing (the wood burner was the only heat for the living room).

That’s so petty to charge for curtains etc. When we sold our house we had removed the fitted fridge/freezer and installed a free standing large American type fridge/freezer. It was only 6 months old. No way would I have charged for it. We left it because they wouldn’t have had a fridge/freezer if we’d taken it.
We also left a bottle of wine in there for them to enjoy on moving day.

I should add that our curtains were custom made for huge windows and cost thousands of pounds. It would have been very expensive to replace them. I don't know if I would have left them if they had not paid for them, that is a good question. We included the integral white goods in the kitchen and the buyer asked if we would include the washing machine and tumble dryer! The washing machine was a 3 month old Miele! I declined and they complained a bit, the agent thought they were very cheeky] I did leave them the tumble dryer as it was really old and may not have survived the move!

We learned a lesson the hard way. Sellers had lovely custom fabric blinds and these are included in the sale. Imagine our shock at turning up to discover they had replaced them with cheap thin blinds that the light poured through and taken their lovely stuff to new Zealand. Neighbours later told me the husband had been a complete arsehole generally which made sense. Oddly they did leave us a bottle of wine and a nice note but I would rather have had the blinds!

They're lucky you're continuing with the sale to be honest, a lot of people are reducing offers and pulling out. I'd never pay! Especially if custom made they can't use them elsewhere!

There have been quite a lot of threads like these in the years that I've been on MN and it's striking that in every one everyone has a tale of their own generosity in leaving a spotless house complete with all f&f and a bottle of champagne but moving into a filthy tip where their buyers have stripped out the lightbulbs / carpets / turf. It does make one wonder where all these selfish sellers are coming from as they clearly aren't on MN.

I'm waiting for the day when a MNer tells us that they left behind a Hockney as they would NEVER HAVE DREAMT of asking for anything for it.

OP, in response to your original point - principle is all very good but if it will cost you £3k to replace the curtains and they're a neutral design that you can live with then a few hundred quid might be a reasonable investment in this situation.

@makingmyway10 um, of course you included the integrated appliances... they're integrated. You can't seriously have thought that was generous?

tentative no sorry not suggesting it was generous at all, just giving context!

Thanksithaspockets I know what you mean but in all honesty people are probably cross that they have been fair or even generous and their vendor has not. We moved in about 6 weeks ago and our vendors left us a local guide book and a bottle of prosecco which was lovely and I had not done anything as nice for our buyers! I left the house clean and left all the instructions for the appliances. Happy to admit my vendors were nicer than me

You can tell on this thread who would think it a huge act of generosity to leave all the lightbulbs too...

I think it depended on how special the curtains are. I gave 2 x 3m windows in our second sitting room and there were around £3800. They are very fine French linen and definitely cannot be repeated. If we sold, I would take them unless I was made a reasonable offer. My dining room also expensive curtains but they are older and would stay if wanted for £0. Everywhere else has made to measure blinds and they would stay and be included in the price. Ditto fixed light fittings but not my Tom Raffield oak skipper fitting. That comes with me! Carpets would stay. Rugs would go. In general if it’s fixed to a wall or floor or ceiling it should stay.

The curtains were £3800 I meant.

@makingmyway10 when we bought this house our vendors were lovely and left us a nice card handsome sparkling wine but the people who bought our old house were a pain and haggled and haggled and dropped their offer twice then messed up an international money transfer so our (thankfully short) chain had to wait a month longer to move.

Count Fosco. We have been lucky, our buyers were a bit cheeky but fine otherwise. The second house we sold about 17 years ago we had awful buyers. They were first time buyers who thought that they were in charge, threatened to pull out twice until we called their bluff and said ok fine pull out then and we will put it back in the market. They backed down. They haggled over everything and were really awkward about a completion date . Just plain difficult and uncompromising! Our buyers this time were easy in comparison

I think that one thing that hasn't been mentioned very often on this thread is one of the reasons why sellers sometimes become seemingly very petty - and that's from me, who believes that generally the price includes anything the seller doesn't want to take with them.

It's the fact that sometimes the seller feels they have been forced into a lower selling price mid-way through the sale....and they feel really aggrieved. Perhaps the survey threw up issues and the buyer negotiated them down, or perhaps at the last minute, the buyer forced the price down and threatened to pull out.....the result is often a feeling of bitterness and determination to have some kind of revenge however petty. For other sellers, they simply always feel annoyed about the price they agree with the seller from the start - you know, those people who are sure it was worth the asking price, even though they only ever received offers of £30k+ below. Eventually they accept an offer but have a seething resentment against the buyer. It's not rational but I think it's quite common and leads to all kinds of 'getting one over' kind of reactions which can be seen in asking for money for fittings that aren't worth much, to being inflexible or obstructive about moving dates etc.

In the current market with lots of buyers renegotiating the price they pay at the moment, I'd think quite a few sellers will be feeling resentful and start demanding daft money for unattractive curtains.

My view on curtains that cost £5k is that they are usually in big expensive houses, that are selling for large amounts of money. Those who buy them in the first place know they only fit in one house and probably expect to fork out for more in a new house, because they care about their decor and don't want curtains that really suited a different house.

So if you're selling a £1m house, I think you expect the price to include your expensive carpets and curtains (unless you want to take them and that's always possible) and things like the expensive fitted washing machine or range cooker. The house sale is t the time to try and re-coup the money from your curtains. You know when you buy them that you can either take them with you if you love them, or that you'll never really get much for them as a re-sale. Essentially you write that money off. If you can't write it off, I think you should take them with you.

I would pay tiny amounts for second hand items being left, purely for the convenience sake- but given they are rarely to your own taste, paying large amounts for something you don't really like doesn't make much sense, even if you will have to then buy your own.

And again, I think sellers are really harsh when they have a FTB over a barrel, becaue they know they don't have anything to bring with them in the way of fixtures and fittings and woukd struggle to buy all new, so essentially extort unfair sums for not very good second hand stuff. It often is meanness or that sense some people have that a deal must always be struck and it is never okay to just write off anything or give it away....I suspect perhaps people who are not great givers to charity or known for their generosity.

If you love it or want to keep it - take it. Totally the seller's right - we are talking about their possessions. If you don't want to take it, just include it.

We are leaving all curtains and blinds for our buyers. Too much hassle taking them all down/trying to sell them on and they won't go with the decor in our new house

Just to add that they were mostly Dunelm bargains so I would feel extremely cheeky trying to make our buyers pay!

My fittings are not generally expensive, I have always left them and preferred to buy new than live with the vendors choice of pattern. I learned a lesson many years ago though, chatting to my new neighbour in the garden about my new carpet I was a bit dismissive of the very dated design it replaced ... only to find hers was the exact same, they did a deal with the supplier!

We’ve usually done up houses to sell too, so after living without bloody curtains for 6 years I’ve bought brand new neutral ones for the sole purpose of selling. They’ll be coming with me though