Your WTF Moments As Sellers

[Smokeahontas]

First time seller here, it’s about to go on the market. To prepare myself a little, what’s the most WTF question / demand you’ve had as a seller?

Yes. It was things like:

They may hold prayer groups on Sundays...
There may be singing...
At 6am...

It was coming up to the client's year end so they were desperate to get the sale through and just agreed to everything, even the drain thing.

Fortunately for the other buyers on that site they pulled out. And where do they get all their money??

I'm selling and one bedroom flat on the main road through my town.

One viewer complained about traffic noise.

My favourite decided that what she wants is actually a two bedroom house, at about £10k more than my cheap flat. I laughed. So did the EA.

Yes our sellers are trying to leave their trampoline in their garden for us, we replied to their F+F report that it needs to be removed before we move in

@ladycarlotta

do they not realise that the builders, plasterers, electricians, plumbers, and painters will have all had radios on, and all had mini computers connected to the internet in their pockets....

Mine is weird sellers and actually my parents story.

After completion, they didn't think they had to move out. Loads of excuses - new build house isn't ready, broken leg, can't afford to move into rental etc. They completed in August and eventually moved in DECEMBER. Then the neighbours were all arseholes because because they had the temerity to want to live in the house they were paying a mortgage on.

I'm surprised about the 'don't like to offend' attitudes to the F+F form - I'm always surprised when there are issues about things being left/taken because ours was so clear and specific - tick/cross/optional price for every item in every room.

God I'd love to start a FTB thread. The vitriol on here for people that buy your houses gives the renters among us the right to seriously dislike landlords & owners!! I'm buying my first house at 38 with 2 kids; I've been around the block a few times and I'm not an idiot. If, say (as I've seen too many times to recollect) your house is a 3 bed terraced priced at 40k more than the house next door that sold 2 weeks ago then yeah, people are going to under offer. One house I went to see had been on the market for 5 years and was £55k more than (identical) houses on the same street for sale.

Don't be so mean and judgy. No everyone got 30k from their parents to buy their first houses.

[quote Cocoaone]@ladycarlotta

do they not realise that the builders, plasterers, electricians, plumbers, and painters will have all had radios on, and all had mini computers connected to the internet in their pockets.... [/quote]
I fear this level of common sense and basic reasoning would be lost on them.

I had a buyer pull out just before exchange because the house had the incorrect number of bedrooms.

If you need a three bed, why would you even view a two bed let alone make an offer, have a survey done, incur legal expenses and get almost to the point of exchange? Fucking clowns.

@LawnFever

We sold to a first time buyer, we didn’t need all the furniture in our new house so listed a few items on the fixtures & fittings - a couple of chests of drawers, a wardrobe and the kitchen table & chairs and said to our solicitor see if she wants them included in the sale.

We weren’t charging but figured it was easier to leave them than move them when we didn’t really need them in the new house.

Heard nothing back on the fixtures & fittings list whatsoever so figured as a FTB she was happy to use what was there, thought no more if it and left the furniture when we moved out.

Got a very snotty message via her solicitor the day after we moved out saying why had we left a load of furniture in the property and it needed moving asap/we needed to pay to have it all removed blah blah blah.

Got our solicitor to reply with a copy of the list she’d had months before and clearly hadn’t bothered reading, they still tried to say we needed to move it, we ignored them...

This is SO unreasonable. Because you didn't hear from the buyers you just assumed you could dump your unwanted furniture on them. Horrible behaviour.

I was a first time buyer buying my current place and I tried to be really reasonable. My seller was lovely and I researched before I bought so that my expectations were sensible. The vendor had moved out awhile before to live with her partner and kindly let me move stuff in early when temp accom ended up being a storage issue. She also very kindly showed me the meters and taught me to programme the boiler because she didn't have any instructions and it was fiddly. I didn't realise that listing my parents as a contact back up for when I went away & out of easy contact on a couple of compulsory work trip (military) apparently made me a bad person .

Had a weird experience letting my room on in a flat as I was moving out though. The girl who came to view loved the flat, my housemate, my room and MY furniture- she told me so, enthusiastically. The flat was rented unfurnished. I explained the furniture in that room belonged to me and I wasn't selling it as I was going to another unfurnished let and everything else was my staying-put flat mates and would stay as long as flat mate did. The incomer looked put out but understood, and took the room and then tried to pull out short notice because she "couldn't afford to furnish" the room.

This girl turned down our offers to help her look for basic, inexpensive furniture or 2nd hand stuff online and in a nearby charity furniture shop. We were pretty sure she wanted my furniture to stay put for free as she kept mentioning how it looked nice (it did but it was mine and I'm still using it) and she wanted similar. I called her bluff and offered to sell her my by now broken bedframe for £20 that I'd otherwise arranged to bin when I left and was eeking out for my last month there. Suddenly her parents swooped in to buy an all new, quite expensive set of furniture. Apparently she was a lovely flatmate otherwise but my ex-housemate and I still laugh about this girl trying to stealth-appropriate my furniture!

Ive got a good one. A man and his wife came to view the property with their young son. We then had another viewing and the man was accompanied by wife of previous couple, so same wife, diff partner and she acted like butter wouldnt melt. To say it was awkward was putting it mildly as she was much more touchy feely with man no. 2. Anyway she turned up for a third viewing ( couple of months later) all alone ( husband and fling? had both disappeared off the scene). She said she needed the property as being a single working mum this was the only house suitable as her son could walk home and let himself in and she had her heart set on it badly. Ok great.... so we waited for an offer only for her to knock 1/3 of its value off. Erm no thanks was our reply and we politely declined. She didn't leave it there. We received a long hand written letter through the post with a huge list of things she would have to change to make it “bearable” ( exact words) for her to live with and that we were “deluded” in asking for what we were. ( including a new toilet seat as she couldn't bring herself to use someone elses My house was beautiful btw even if i say so myself, im an interior designer. Also our house was priced cheaper than a couple of comparable houses ( they were smaller and on the lesser desirable side ) for a quick sale so we were far from deluded. None the less she basically wanted us to foot the bill for redoing the house to her taste. She never did get the house, i wouldn't have sold it to her of she offered 30% more!
We sold for £20k over the asking price.
I often wonder if she ended up with anyone either, because she was a nutter.

Following

I’ve just read about the Plymouth Brethren, I didn’t even know they existed! I mean whatever floats your boat but some of that is quite, quite mad.

We had a family of 10 turn up who thought they'd just split up and wander all over the property by themselves - umm no. They were told 2 could come in and the rest could wait outside.

Then there was the woman who said nothing until she got to DSs room and saw the crucifix on the wall. She clasped her hands in prayer and said 'I'm so glad to be buying from a Christian family'. We sold it to the other 'normal' couple.

@fairlyurgentdresshelpneeded

God I'd love to start a FTB thread. The vitriol on here for people that buy your houses gives the renters among us the right to seriously dislike landlords & owners!! I'm buying my first house at 38 with 2 kids; I've been around the block a few times and I'm not an idiot. If, say (as I've seen too many times to recollect) your house is a 3 bed terraced priced at 40k more than the house next door that sold 2 weeks ago then yeah, people are going to under offer. One house I went to see had been on the market for 5 years and was £55k more than (identical) houses on the same street for sale.

Don't be so mean and judgy. No everyone got 30k from their parents to buy their first houses.

Agree.

I cannot believe some of these stories!
One of our buyers sent us a long list of questions including what we'd done for internet and whether we thought she could share with the neighbours. She was an FTB.
Then there were a number of viewings who said they didn't want a shared garden. Very obvious on the listing that the garden was shared.
Snotty letter from buyer's solicitor asking us to fix extractor fan in bathroom. We'd just turned it off while the flat was empty.
I know this is a thread about buyers, but we had a bonkers lot of vendors. Left loads of crap in the house. Let themselves back in after completion to pick some of it up. Turned up a few weeks later once we'd got the builders in and asked the builders if they could collect last bits they'd left on the garden. That had all been in the first skip.

@AnneElliott

We had a family of 10 turn up who thought they'd just split up and wander all over the property by themselves - umm no. They were told 2 could come in and the rest could wait outside.

Then there was the woman who said nothing until she got to DSs room and saw the crucifix on the wall. She clasped her hands in prayer and said 'I'm so glad to be buying from a Christian family'. We sold it to the other 'normal' couple.

She clasped her hands in prayer and said 'I'm so glad to be buying from a Christian family'. We sold it to the other 'normal' couple.

Wow you sound incredibly judgemental

@Humansareidiots

Ive got a good one. A man and his wife came to view the property with their young son. We then had another viewing and the man was accompanied by wife of previous couple, so same wife, diff partner and she acted like butter wouldnt melt. To say it was awkward was putting it mildly as she was much more touchy feely with man no. 2. Anyway she turned up for a third viewing ( couple of months later) all alone ( husband and fling? had both disappeared off the scene). She said she needed the property as being a single working mum this was the only house suitable as her son could walk home and let himself in and she had her heart set on it badly. Ok great.... so we waited for an offer only for her to knock 1/3 of its value off. Erm no thanks was our reply and we politely declined. She didn't leave it there. We received a long hand written letter through the post with a huge list of things she would have to change to make it “bearable” ( exact words) for her to live with and that we were “deluded” in asking for what we were. ( including a new toilet seat as she couldn't bring herself to use someone elses My house was beautiful btw even if i say so myself, im an interior designer. Also our house was priced cheaper than a couple of comparable houses ( they were smaller and on the lesser desirable side ) for a quick sale so we were far from deluded. None the less she basically wanted us to foot the bill for redoing the house to her taste. She never did get the house, i wouldn't have sold it to her of she offered 30% more! We sold for £20k over the asking price. I often wonder if she ended up with anyone either, because she was a nutter.

Yes she sounded nuts, but do you know for sure that both men were her partners? People often mistake my brother for my 'husband' or 'partner'

@bluebluezoo

Mines quite a nice one :).

Bought my first house when I moved to a new city for my first job.

Walked in on exchange day to find everything still there. Sofa, bed, sheets and blankets in the cupboards, gardening tools, pots and pans in the kitchen. Clearly no removal booked, nothing had gone.

Phoned my EA. Phoned back a while later to say the family of the lady who had died had been too upset to clear out the house.

Nice part? I was down to my last penny after buying the house. Had planned to sleep on the floor until I could afford furniture. So I told the EA I was more than happy to deal with all the left property.

Lady had very good taste and I lived with her stuff for quite a while :). Neighbours told me some lovely stories. I still have some bits 20 years later that I kept when I moved on.

That's quite sad.... And creepy.

So her underwear was still in her drawers etc??

@bakingdemon Deranged vendor stories also welcome!

@Raisinclub

I was selling a tiny 2 up, 2 down terrace. A couple came to look and they were both ENORMOUS.. They went into the kitchen and couldn’t turn around so had to back out like a car reversing. I’ve no idea how they would have opened the oven door. There was a bedroom in the attic and both were sweating and had to sit on the bed when they got upstairs! I thought anyone in their right mind could see it was way too small.

Nope the next morning they and two others put in asking price offers, with them eventually pushing the price up by £12k over asking. Then they called an hour later to say actually they were pulling out as they couldn’t afford it.

The funniest thing was the sale took ages to go through and they ended up renting a flat over the road from me. I could see them and wave every morning from the house they could have had

Nice bit of fat shaming there

Cervix for sure man no. 1 was her husband. Was referred to it by the EA’s as well ... mrs and mrs whatstherenames. Also saw him with her son shopping in a mall after the second viewing with the man she was very flirty touchy feely with.

[quote Lettuceforlunch]@Greenandcabbagelooking - so you couldn’t be contacted for the majority of the working day, had mummy and daddy on standby (why?!) but hope you weren’t too much of a pain...?[/quote]
It’s rather frowned upon to leave 30 children unsupervised with fire and chemicals to make phone calls...