What time do we leave our house on completion day?

[Thingsthatgo]

We are hoping to exchange this week, for a completion day next week. We have some removals lined up, and I am very excited.
We are the first house in a short chain of two properties. What time do we need to be out, and the final clean done on completion day? Will we be given a specific time?
I seem to remember last time we left at the crack of dawn.

Ask your solicitor, it’s in your contract. It’s usually twelve or two pm

We were not given a time but funds went through at around 4.

Ah ok, that is great. Thank you.

12 or 2 usually.
You can discuss with your solicitor.

Once the funds go through. With us, that was 4pm. So we couldn’t move into our new house until then, and the estate agent didnt hand over our keys to the new owner until then.
We did, however, have the van packed up and finished the final clean of the house by 11am, so just had. A lot of hanging around at that point.

We competed at 11am but we hadn't finished moving out. In the contract it was written that we had to be out by 2pm, didn't stop our FTB's being a bit arsey that we were still in the property at 11am (how they expected anyone to move out in 3 hours (our removals started started 8am) and leave the place spotless for them I will never know). The estate agent spoke to them and placated them for a few more hours but we were out and done by 12.30. Apparently they then didn't even pick the keys up from the agent till 4pm sigh.

Ok, so although it is written in the contract, it doesn’t always go to plan! As we are first in the chain, I’m guessing that we might have a bit of hanging around.
Thank goodness the kids will be back at school at least!

Definitely doesn't always go to plan. We were in the middle of a chain of three and (somewhat stupidly, with a week old baby) did our own removals, literally down the road. We still had stuff in the house when we completed and that was around half two. Then I had to drive 30 minutes to go and fetch our keys from the estate agent that was miles away. Fortunately our buyer was very understanding and at work, so he wasn't bothered that we handed out keys to the estate agent around half four and still had a load of crap on the front garden. I don't think he even went to look at the house until the next day.

It'll work out, you just might have to grit your teeth a little but hopefully you'll have a buyer like we did!

We completed really early in the day, it must have been about 10am. However we were happy to give our vendors until around 2pm for removals to load up and give the house a clean. They did lose their cat in the moving process and I do wonder if they ever found it!

Just got the letters from my solicitor re my completion in a couple of weeks - I am told to be out of the flat by 12.30, and that old owners should be out of the new house by 1pm

In reality, movers are doing 8-11 or so, I plan to leave by 12, to hang around outside new house for a while..

I have no EA so will drop off directly to my buyers (who live a couple of streets away) - either en route to new house (if money has transferred) or that night (they are moving in later)

PS - don't kill yourself with the cleaning, even if a house is 'clean' by the time someone drags in boxes it won't be anymore

There's a bit of a grey area in that the contract will state the completion time but that's the "no later than else there will be a penalty" rather than the specific time.

It really depends where you're going to and more specifically where your buyers are coming from. If they are first time buyers coming from over the road then they could well have sent the money to your solicitor and completed by mid-morning. If you are the end of the chain and your buyers are coming from 2 hours away, they probably won't complete til 2 pm or later and won't turn up at the house til late afternoon at the earliest. Most usually monies don't start moving til later in the morning. If there's a chain, the completion times tend to be staggered so that you require your buyers to complete (ie their monies are received into your solicitors' client account) by, say, 1 pm so that you can comply with a 2pm completion time with the people you're buying from.

That's a roundabout way of saying that you should sensibly aim to be out by about midday but if you're moving round the corner, expect to sit in your car for a bit. Gone are the days of having lunch at the pub while you wait for the call to say that you've completed!

Hope it all goes smoothly.

We have just moved, we didn’t officially complete on our sale till gone 3pm, our removers started loading at 8am, done by 11:30am, we did final clean left the property 12.15, got the keys to our new property just gone 4pm. So later than usual completion times, so go with the flow would be my advice. Good luck OP.

It's usually midday so I would plan to be out of there by then. We usually get the movers with us for 9:30 or 10:00am, get the van all packed, go for lunch, get the keys and get it all in the new home afterwards. How exciting!

My last completion was 10am, we had loaded the truck up the day before and stored it overnight and I had cleaned the place by the next day. I have no memory of where I slept though! Technically it's theirs once the funds go through, and I have previously been in the embarrassing position of still moving out when the new owners showed up.

We were out by 10am, the sale didn't complete with cleared funds until 2.15pm.