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.

Vice cache - as it is known in France. Buyers can take sellers to court for compensation if they can prove hidden defects - valid for 2 years after the sale.

I've always left our houses clean and never left anything that our buyers didn't know about (and nothing bad at that!) but I remember another one we found once we'd moved in.

We moved back to the village I grew up in and when we were viewing bungalows, I told my husband that the bungalow next door had been hit by lightning when I was 8 and the roof had caught fire. We bought the bungalow we were viewing and moved in but knew we had lots of work to do on it. The kitchen needed to be ripped out and it had polystyrene tiles on the ceiling in there and in the bathroom.

We moved in and when putting some boxes in the loft my husband shouted down that it was our bungalow that had been on fire - some of the joists were sooty - not damaged but had soot on them.

We ordered a new kitchen and set about decorating - we scrapped off the polystyrene tiles and found the ceiling had holes in it where the firemen had poked holes in it on the side where the kitchen and bathroom were to let the water out of the loft!

Nothing i can think of and the last 3 properties we've sold had almost new bathrooms and kitchens.

This house, however - which we paid the asking price for in 2017 - we are STILL finding atrocities left by the couple, the bloke of which had a 'why pay a skilled person when I can bodge it myself?' attitude.

Leaving animals behind is a shit thing to do and so is purposefully leaving a turd behind, @whatnow41 your husband is a pig.

I've never hidden anything deliberately, but there have been small flaws we've learned to live with and not bothered sorting out.

For example, the boiler overflow in this house occasionally discharges. It's only supposed to do it in occasional, emergency situations. Ours does it quite often. The boiler's been inspected, the manufacturer has looked, no one can work out why.

The fans in the bathroom aren't powerful enough, and that room tends towards condensation damage. I'd probably not show it while it was wet and drippy, straight after DS's long hot shower...

A dangerous room simply bricked up
The mind boggles.

Like buying a used car, buying a house is always a case of buyer beware - but it seems to extend to new builds now.

Our old house the boiler packed up between exchange and completion. Luckily we could prove it because it had been serviced just days before and we had a certificate. We did feel sorry for the buyers and replaced an ancient immersion element (£100) so they would have some hot water (and for us in the last week we lived there!) and knocked £500 off the purchase price as a gesture which they were gracious about.

Many years before I sold my flat and the bathroom extractor fan failed (again just days) before we were due to move out. My husband kept saying it would be "nice" to replace it for the new lady but we had literally spent every penny on the next property so we just left it.

At the house where we currently live my son found a 1980s Polish porn mag under the floorboards of his new bedroom which gave us all a good laugh. There was also a set of golf clubs in the loft which I sold on ebay after a couple of years.

The things people are admitting to on this thread are horrible, I don't understand how you could do that to someone.

We completely scrubbed the whole house when we left. Every single room. We left paint, flooring, tiles in the garage etc for if anything needed re-doing in the future, even though we'd done most of the odd jobs before sale. We even took most of the rubbish for the week before to the tip so that they would have room to put rubbish when they moved in.

The house we have moved to is horrendous. First time in the garden the kids all came in with dog poo all over them where it had been left outside. Bins were overflowing. There was an awful smell throughout the house which they had covered with candles or something when we viewed it. I couldn't cook in the kitchen for the first month because the smell and the state of it was unbearable. I absolutely hate the house and wouldn't have bought it coz there is so much wrong with it. It's quite overwhelming knowing we don't have the money to fix all the problems they left and we have to live here. I'm really unsettled.

In our case it was the buyer not us! We had to gut our house and redecorate after a tenant's dogs trashed it - they'd scratched the internal doors downstairs so we removed them. On the photos and viewings there were no doors but we hung replacement doors before the sale went through. Buyer went to measure up for something and went mad to the agent saying we'd removed the original doors and changed the kitchen worktops and she demanded they be replaced with the originals.

I emailed EA and asked them to show her the photos again and explain the worktops were the ones she'd seen but as she offered on the house with no doors, if she wanted it in the condition she'd viewed it I'd happily take the doors off again! Funnily enough she shut up and bought it.

A rented property (that the owners were selling). One of my flatmates punched the wall and put a hole in the plasterboard at exactly the same height as the light switches. To "repair" the hole, we bought a light fitting and put it over the hole. It was completely undetectable. Got the full deposit back. I've always wondered whether the new owners got a sparky out to find out which switch the light operated....

An old hoover. Well at least it worked! You should have seen the crap that was left here - broken chandelier (and i mean in bits) a 3 legged coffee table (once had 4 legs) and my favourite - the living room carpet.

The carpet was actually stuck to the floor with a red liquid that we hoped was beetroot juice.

We called the old owners to come and take their crap - so they came when we weren’t in (the builder let them in) and they took their crap - and the lightbulbs and unscrewed mirrors from the bedrooms (which were actually original fittings) and stole our spare main door key (it’s a block and really expensive to get copies) - oops got got stuck in the door bag by the time they got back with the WS 40 someone has taken it (yeah, right). They had a few other properties in the block so the spare key would have been no use to them at all, oh no...

Still bitter after 25 years...

As a young and naive FTBer in my early 20s I went viewing a lovely property that had been recently renovated and had a huge kitchen-diner/family room extension done with really nice soft furnishings in. I loved it. DP missed the viewing due to a work emergency so I went alone the first time and then booked a second viewing. As soon as DP walked into the kitchen he asked the owner what the rug was hiding. The owner lifted it up and underneath was a manhole cover giving access to the sewer. I couldn't believe they didn't even mention it during the first viewing.

We ended up buying a different house and the worst they left were damaged carpets, broken tiles in the shower causing wet plasterboard and a light fitting that doesn't have any power going to it, it seems we got off quite lightly reading some of these replies.

I know it's caveat emptor and all that, but there is some despicable behaviour on this thread, it's a real eye opener. If I ever buy another house (god forbid) I will be looking at everything (and moving any flannels artfully draped around the bathroom!)

Our buyers changed their minds about keeping the huge wardrobe in our bedroom...after we'd filled the skip. We may have used it to board the roof space...

Other than that I put a lot of effort into cleaning it and they gutted it! They'd told us a few ribs about their situation so they didn't ask too many questions.

Hoping our seller isn't on here!

A boiler with 'personality'. It would work when it felt like it and not when it didn't. It could lock on in July meaning I had to open all the windows and lock off in winter so I'd need to put heaters on and leave the oven door open. It had been badly installed with the pipes going diagonally under the living room floor and set in concrete. I was happy to replace the boiler until I found out the pipes had to be replaced too and I just couldn't afford to have the floor dug up. Pure serendipity meant the boiler was working on the day of the viewing (in winter thank goodness!) and the sale was done. I didn't feel bad though because the buyer was an old school bully from a few years above me and I felt it was pure karma for the misery and violence she inflicted on so many people for years.

A slightly leaky roof but only leaked if the rain was super heavy and the wind was blowing in a certain direction.
We did get it fixed once already but it was very strange as we could sometimes hear it but struggled to find it the second time .
I did feel abit bad but then our buyers were so rude and rushed us on moving day so not my problem anymore !
We did get a bit of karma in our new house though as we had 1 toilet that just kept running till we got a plumber to change the flush mechanism, lots of cracks in the plaster in most rooms (not really bad but meant lots of filler) , really crappy amateur paint job on the kitchen cupboards which I didn’t notice before , a smelly interstates fridge and an over the bath shower that doesn’t work although not a big deal as we have two other normal showers so wouldn’t really use it .
Did make me realise though that everyone hides things from their buyers.

My DH and I once sold a flat - it had a flat roof but was in good condition. Our neighbour had paid for repairs rather than sharing the cost with the whole block (was wanting to sell). So we thought we'd take some pro-active measures and get all the flats together to pay for an overhaul of the flat roof.

Nothing was wrong, no leaks, nothing. Just coming to end of life within a few years.

Nothing happened and then we decided to sell (I had SPD and was struggling up the stairs with baby and buggy)

A year or maybe 2 after we moved our buyer got in touch wanting to sue us because the roof had started leaking and they had copies of the letter we had sent saying this was proof we knew it was leaking! It really wasn't leaking, we were the top flat and would have experienced it.

So sometimes even trying to do the right thing gets you in bother.

Nothing happened fortunately our solicitor told us not to worry about it and it did go away in the end.

The house we moved into - the vendors were still here after the house was ours, their elderly Mum was cleaning the kitchen, we discovered the hob was leaking gas and it was condemned on the day we moved it. Couldn't get anything done about that.
The vendors were also enthusiastic DIYers, but NOT good DIYers.

A difficult neighbour

@pinkearedcow

I know it's caveat emptor and all that, but there is some despicable behaviour on this thread, it's a real eye opener. If I ever buy another house (god forbid) I will be looking at everything (and moving any flannels artfully draped around the bathroom!)

Me too!

I’ve not had much experience of buying and selling and am genuinely shocked at some of the things on here. I wouldn’t dream of shafting new buyers the way some people have

@joysexreno

It's terrifying how many issues apparently aren't picked up in the building survey

We bought a house five months ago and neither the estate agent, nor the surveyor noticed that it had a cellar you can stand up in, the entire length and width of the house, accessed through a trap door behind the side door

@picklemewalnuts is yours a Worcester Bosch by any chance? Mine does exactly the same thing and it’s only 5 years old.

As for my house, it was an ex rental which had been vacant for a number of years. It was my FTB as well. The vendor was an absolute twat.

The kitchen was made up of several units that weren’t from the same range
There was a spiders nest in the oven
The socket where your washing machine is supposed to be hardwired was actually a live, spliced wire
When I had the fuse box updated, the electrician pulled out metres and metres of cable that didn’t seem to be attached to anything
Left all their shite furniture here, despite there being a removal clause in the contract. Couldn’t be arsed to pursue.
A random odour like cheap disinfectant that lingered for ages, despite cleaning & most of the house being replastered
A front door which would randomly bolt itself, more often than not as you were leaving the house

We left our last house in a pristine condition. The only thing that might have startled the new owners would be the sudden appearance of a herd of slugs in the dining room. No matter how hard we tried we couldn’t find where they were getting in.

🤢

Never left anything when selling a house.

When I was a student, I had to find a replacement tenant so I could move for an internship. I used posters and a rug to cover mould, put music on to cover the weird pipe sounds, and reassured viewers that my housemates were lovely (they weren’t a nightmare, but they weren’t exactly sociable).

In my defence, the tenant would only be living there for 6 months. I wouldn’t do that when selling.

Wow, I can’t believe some of the things on this thread. The mould covered wall being disguised by new wallpaper . I would be devastated. I’m also amazed by how many surveys aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. We risked buying without one as it was such a solid ex council and we knew it needed a few large jobs doing (new heating, some electrics). It’s made me realise how lucky we were with our lovely vendors. They left us loads of useful nearly new stuff and the only thing was as they were leaving they mentioned that the loo flush is slightly dodgy and needs to be popped back up.