Ok, own up! What did you lumber your buyer with?

[BluTangClan]

Much like an old car, it's got to the stage with our house where we think "do we spend loads of money fixing it all, or bodge it all and try to sell it?".

So here's the opportunity to own up to; the mould you painted over, the crack in the wall that you moved the bookcase in front of, the hob that doesn't work when the oven's on, and the iron mark on the carpet that you put the rug on top of.

We will forgive you your sins without judgement.

Much less than we were lumbered with. We tended to fix issues as they arose while the previous owners of this house couldn't competently change a light bulb.

All the same, we never did sort out the horrendous condensation problem.

We bought a house with one of the very specific issues detailed on this thread, I wonder if it’s the same!!

Our previous owners refused to provide a service certificate for the boiler so we assumed it didn't work. Turns out it's in good nick for its age but the heating controller was knackered. DH fixed that by replacing a £2 capacitor.

In our old house, we fixed the leak but the ceiling in the kitchen was horribly bowed and no one noticed.

The house we moved into is a nightmare, though.

Everything leaks! None of the toilets flush properly. They'd hidden mould in the en-suite with shampoo bottles. They'd covered up where they'd been sampling dark paint colours with posters. They'd not painted behind a huge mirror which they obviously then took with them. The roof in the extension leaks, and water has gotten into the lights so they don't work.

I loved this house to begin with. I don't anymore.

Whatnow41 that is just so foul, I can't believe he did that. I'd be so ashamed.

We didn't leave anything that wouldn't have come up in the survey, it was just a wonky, rickety, drafty old house and I'm not sure they'll have been prepared for the upkeep it needed.

When we lived in our old house, the guy we bought it from used to fix motorbikes but he didn't tell us that he used to fix them in his living room and placed the sofa over a massive oil stain all over the laminate flooring. Bastard

@BluTangClan

Much like an old car, it's got to the stage with our house where we think "do we spend loads of money fixing it all, or bodge it all and try to sell it?".

So here's the opportunity to own up to; the mould you painted over, the crack in the wall that you moved the bookcase in front of, the hob that doesn't work when the oven's on, and the iron mark on the carpet that you put the rug on top of.

We will forgive you your sins without judgement.

Why does this read like you're fishing for content for an article?

@FourForYouGlenCoco

We knew the boiler was old and shitty but it never gave us any hassle; our buyers pushed for a boiler service/check and we refused. Found out from ex neighbours a while down the line that within about a month of the move the boiler had packed in and been condemned 🙈 felt very bad! In my defence the boiler had never been or had an issue in all the time we’d lived there - we moved in assuming it would give up at some point and we’d replace it, and then it just never did. And we’d also inherited a ludicrously old and shitty boiler in the new house and had to have it replaced so we were in the same boat as our buyers! Sorry guys.

No judgement!

Just wondering why you refused their request for a boiler check?

Being on a flight path- my buyer naturally didn't mention that and I didn't notice on the two occasions I visited. It's not a busy one, been totally quiet in lockdown, but something very very hard to detect when you are buying- never gave it a thought til sitting in the garden and an aircraft came in low overhead!

We didn't tell them about birds nesting in the fascia and soffit but in our defence, you could see this from standing outside the house so it wasn't like we tried to hide it.

We got our karma anyway as the house we moved into had a lifetimes worth of junk in the loft which needed a skip to clear.

I left a sofa that was too big to move out of the living room. It was delivered in pieces, built and then the leather hand stitched together.

That is so bloody annoying!

I'm in Scotland, and during our last couple of moves there was a bit in the contract that says appliances have to be in working order for 7 days after the buyer moves in. On our last move, we were keeping our fingers crossed the tricky boiler would hold up for 7 days (the buyers had messed us about a lot so didn't feel any guilt about it).

@whatnow41 that is grim 🤢

I sold my old house to a landlord who didn't bother with a survey 'because I'm not going to live there so I don't care'

Serves him right as the house was subsiding.

Nothing hideous. It was just tired in general, and needed new pvc windows. Oh and the red plastic tub buried in the back garden which was our 'frog pool'. The buyer knew this stuff though.

Its only round the corner from us and they've made it look really nice - something we would have never gotten around to. Obviously we haven't seen the inside (apart from the hallway when we did trick or treating a couple of years back and my youngest had a good nosey whilst getting his treats!) They paved over the front garden so they could park their cars side by side (which is something we wanted to do, but would never have done) They also have a very nice new front door. And they cut down the tree hedge that blocked the light. We never did as it would upset Betty next door. They obviously didn't check in with Betty :)

In our first house, I forgot about the things in the loft and actually the things in the loft that were there from previous owner. I also hadn’t realised that I would need to call the council for extra rubbish collection (this was about 25 years ago, when you used to just put out rubbish bags).

Last house, big paint splog on bedroom carpet. To be fair, had totally forgotten about it as it was under the bed.

In our first property, a flat, I’d asked my DH to paint our D.C. room. It was very small room and he took a whole week off work to paint it. Wasn’t until we were moving out and the furniture removed that I learned DH had not moved any of the furniture but painted around it.

For us, one house we move into I found out that the kitchen work surface had only been resting on top of appliances - moved in to find the work surface on the floor. Part of one appliance was holding up the kitchen sink, so was being held up wit a clamp onto the tap. Same seller had not hooked up the overflow on the tub. Discovered that when I put the kids in the bath and any splashes came out through the kitchen ceiling below the bathroom.

This house, many of the window handles were broken. Could not open any windows.

A near miss was a house we were going to buy. Went for a third viewing to measure roof height as dependant upon our being able to put in a loft conversion. I used the main bathroom and decided just to check water pressure- the shower was for display only. No pipes to shower. Just the handles screwed to the wall and lovely looking rain shower affixed to the ceiling. We decided to walk away. Afterward, our D.C. told us that as they were playing with seller’s D.C. in the garden while they showed us around, the children said how happy there were to move because the neighbours behind had loud parties, threw bottle over the fence and usually there was a lot of broken glass in the garden so they couldn’t play there until their parents would check/clean up the glass.

This post is appalling and not in the least bit amusing.

I would never leave a house in such a condition and not tell the potential buyers. It’s potential fraud and really unreasonable.

We left a shower that leaked and could not be work out why. We painted the ceiling and had baths up until the day we moved out so it would not leak

@Ohtheplacesyougo

This post is appalling and not in the least bit amusing.

I would never leave a house in such a condition and not tell the potential buyers. It’s potential fraud and really unreasonable.

It's not fraud at all, houses are sold as seen, caveat emptor. Unless you're specifically telling them something works when it doesn't etc.

We have the opposite issue that our vendors hid a significant issue (that our extensive surveys did not pick up!) that has caused no end of stress. I currently have the builders in rectifying it

The only thing we've not done 'properly' in this house is fill and line the walls with decent lining paper rather than replaster. But I prefer a lined wall to a plastered wall so I guess that's down to taste. Whoever buys our house next is getting a gem (imvho )

We've never knowingly left any problems in a house we've sold. I even had a bathroom replastered before moving.
However we have bought a house with a leaky boiler that needed replacing immediately, we had a toddler it was February and we were broke. It explained why they drained the system before leaving!
That particular house was filthy too.
Our next home was far worse. Also filthy, tiles stuck back on with blue tack. I don't think the downstairs toilet had been cleaned in 5 years.
The dining room stunk of smoke.
The flat roof was leaking and needed replacing. But the worst thing was asbestos in the loft and under the floor.
We sued our surveyor and won.
Our latest home is the only one where we didn't bother with a survey and have had no issues. Tbf though we don't have central heating to go wrong.
It's the mice and stone martens that are the problem but that's country living!

Nothing.... not that we know of anyway!

We left our house in really good condition - I had a handy man round the week we exchanged to fix a few niggles - a seal on a sink had gone so I replaced it, a trim from our wooden floor had lifted so I had it stuck down, some paint was flaking from the back door and we had it fixed. I touched up paintwork etc. Full clean too.

However, it did have a damp problem in the kitchen diner - this was disclosed, one part is slightly underground and we had it tanked when we moved in years ago. We also had damp treatment to another wall - ripped off by damp proofing companies, basically, as the damp was from condensation. The buyer was given all the "guarantee" documentation and copy correspondence from when we contacted them to remedy the issues. They also had a full survey.
In short, you had to be careful to ventilate and to use a dehumidifier if you ever dried clothes in there otherwise condensation would form on patches of the wall and chimney breast. You also had to ensure the room remained heated - I often had the heating on full and a window open. We installed a high powered extractor fan which worked but was annoyingly loud. By doing these things we didn't have any issues after the first couple of winters.
Clearly, the new owners did not use the extractor or didn't read our correspondence properly as we later received a complaint that they renovated the kitchen diner, apparently breaching the tanking - they called out yet another damp "specialist" who recommended a raft of other "remedies" costing a fortune and because of the work they had done they couldn't use the previous guarantees. They wanted compo from us.

They didn't get it but I am glad we didn't try to hide it.

On the reverse, the second house we purchased had been on the market for some time. We had originally not viewed as it was outside of our price range. Anyway, it was reduced and then reduced again. We were relocating so had nowhere to sell and we put in an offer which was excepted. The sellers were very unhappy (we found out later), with the price they had received and prior to moving out took up all of the carpets, a garden shed, all bulbs and several light fittings. None of these were that great or that new, so this was pure spite. After a couple of months they pitched up asking why we had not forwarded on their mail. We clearly advised them of the excellent service offered by the Post Office!

We moved into a house last year that was lovely but it's taken all our savings to repair. Nothing showed on the survey :/
damp in the basement and front room,
the ceiling collapsed because they had a leak in the bathroom and when we took the bath panel off they had left a plate to catch the drips and Obviously it overflowed and rotted the floor boards, the leak had been going on for a year or so, new bathroom needed and new floor, house insurance wouldn't cover it as it was a pre existing issue.
rat infestation in the basement that has cost us £500 to fix;
they blocked up a fire place and then stopped and filled it with all sorts of flammable shit so when we opened it up we had to dispose of all the crap they'd put in it and pay someone to rebuild the chimney breast
new roof.