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?

I think @Lettuceforlunch thinks we still live in the 80s and all comms are done via a landline...

When I purchased my flat, all comms were done via email. I, too, was not around during 9-5 to field calls whilst at work. Email is much easier, plus it's best to have reference points in writing. Doesn't make me a terrible FTB ffs.

@Cocogreen "Buyers are liars" - because they always cry poor!

Some of us really are

This is a positive rather than negative WTF from my perspective...I had a a viewer at 11.45 on the day the house went to best and final offers at noon, he put in an offer 10 mins after leaving the house for 15% over the asking price...his wife hadn't even seen it! He really wanted our house.

@Humansareidiots

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.

Crikey!

Few years ago. Selling a 3 storey home. Lovely young Asian couple tuned up to view, as I opened the door (EA insisted we did viewings) the woman looked a bit nervous. She and her husband walked into the hall and we're promptly followed by his parents, then her parents and then finally someone I assumed was grandma.
An interesting half hour followed where they crowded in every room including the box room.

The following day the EA called with feedback. They didn't want a house with steps. You know, the steps in the bloody photos.
We took it off the market just after that and decided we couldn't be arsed. Stayed for several more years in the end.

@BeautifulandWilfulandDead

This is a positive rather than negative WTF from my perspective...I had a a viewer at 11.45 on the day the house went to best and final offers at noon, he put in an offer 10 mins after leaving the house for 15% over the asking price...his wife hadn't even seen it! He really wanted our house.

Did he get it?!

@RhubarbFairy yes, he was the highest bidder by over 5k.

One I've just remembered, in this case the sellers were the problem.
Contacts were exchanged, settlement was at 11.00am. At 11.15am my friend and his wife rolled up with all their possessions in the moving van to find the couple had just started packing up a 3 bedroom house ... 15 minutes previously.
I mean taking plates out of cupboards, dismantling furniture. They'd done NOTHING before.
My friend said, look we'll come back in a few hours, left the locked van there.
Came back at 2, Still not done ( they had a van and family members filling cars and going back and forth).
From memory the old owners finally drove off at 5.
Fortunately the house was pretty clean but I don't think they emptied their van until after 7.

Why am I judgemental @CervixHaver? We are in fact Catholic (hence the crucifix) but it's plainly weird to view a house, say nothing other than the comment about 'buying from a Christian family' when she hadn't even put in an offer!! Her husband seemed fairly sane but I suspected she'd be difficult and so we sold to the normal people who incidentally were also Catholic but didn't feel the need to bring religion into the house buying process!!

When I was a FTB our lease ran out a week before completion date.

I was young and foolish and asked the vendors if we could move in early. Funnily enough they declined.

Probably my worst story was when we were selling the marital home as Exh and I were getting divorced. It was a difficult enough process (he refused to engage with any of it beyond signing his name on the paperwork so I organised everything including his removal van just to be sure he would actually leave). I took great pains to make sure the house looked like a happy family lived there, wedding photos still up etc as I didn't want potential buyers thinking they could push us into dropping the price in desperation to move.

A friend of one of our neighbours (who we were quite friendly with) viewed the house, and had found out through the neighbours that we were getting divorced. The buyer then dropped his offer by 40k (it was on the market for £230k so a big drop) with the promise that he would rent it back to me if I agreed the sale.

The neighbours insisted he was trying to do me a favour, but alongside the humiliation I already felt that my marriage had broken down, this was just a slap in the face to me. I refused to sell and sold the house for its actual asking price only a few weeks later.

Cancel a sale because of finding out your partners been having an affair.

Next door were always doing things to the inside of the house, new staircase, took the bath out to make a wet room, new front door. I was the end of the row.
I put my house up for 200k get an offer same day, my house is as it was, just painted about 20 years old.
My EA comes to say hi, has a coffee, then knocks on nextdoor, as they now want to sell.
After about 30 mins I hear screaming nextdoor, look out the back window to hear my neighbors wife having a breakdown over why her house is worth less than mine when it's cost her 90k in improvements.
Seems she had put it all on credit cards and upped her mortgage when house prices rose.
She still lives there 15 years later and still can't afford to move as the 1980's house price rise hasn't happened again.

These are great

We sold our flat a few years ago. FTB with the most vicious solicitors. We had to pay a months rent for them if we were to exchange on the day we'd agreed, as apparently we'd made them agree this date. They'd come round & we'd a civilised conversation or so we'd thought
On the actual day we were moving they appeared when we were in the middle of packing. Thought it was odd but they didn't stay long. Our solicitors phoned me later to say that they were still happy with flat. So odd!

I don't know who was unreasonable , us as FTB or the vendor .
The house we still live in had been on the market for 5 yrs . Empty property. This was 1998. It was on the market for £40k.
We knew that it needed a full refurb. The EA said it isn't worth the £40k it was up for , had few viewings . We had a survey and valued at £30k
So we put an offer in of £30k.
Vendor said no, wanted the full asking price and became a bit arsey.
On digging we found through the solicitor that the house was been held by a nursing home due to none payment of fees.
We had the solicitor do some digging. NH owed £28k
Due to the demands of owner etc
We offered the nursing home
£28k , which our solicitor at the time agreed.
We found out that probate hadn't been done, the family were arguing over who was going to pay the NH fees and were basically difficult.
The NH excepted our offer.
And here we are 24 yrs later
Just a shame we got screwed with an interest only mortgage.

We moved into a house where the owner also owned and was moving into the house next door.
We turned up with our 8 month old on completion day and they had not packed up!
They wouldn’t let us in despite it legally being ours. The removal van was nearly out of time which prompted us to call our solicitors and the EA, after which they told us we could have one room to put our stuff in.
They finally left early evening, although the husband’s gross dressing gown was still on the back of the bathroom door.
They left so much rubbish in the loft and hadn’t cleaned the house either.
Then to add insult to injury, they climbed the fence at night to dig up an olive tree in the back garden.

I've posted about this before.
When I was 13 my parents bought a run down coach house (they have a form for buying ruins that need fixing up)
There were loads of outbuildings, and then the only liveable bit was a flat above the old coach rooms. 4 room flat + kitchen and bathroom.

They arrived on completion date. The previous owner was still in bed, nothing packed. we stood around with removal vans while my Dad made 500 phone calls. It turns out that is was a bank repossession and he didn't want to move. Girlfriend turns up and is mortified. Phones round for removal vans. Finds someone with 2 small vans who is free.
Then she starts packing while he stomps around and rages. Fridge full, cupboards full, everything from scratch needed packing and sorting.
But the problem was, he was a sort of junk/antique dealer. And every outbuilding and every room apart from his bedroom was piled floor to ceiling with junk. Not rubbish, but for example, boxes of china.
The two small vans did about 6 trips back and forth, men were seriously pissed off at how big the job was. They managed to empty the flat, the two big rooms below and the first of the outbuildings.

We moved in (well we were camping in to be fair) he was moving to a tiny store place which couldn't hold it all anyway.
he came back to remove the rest out fo the buildings over the next couple of days - or rather the girlfriend organised that.

But the land around (was not a garden) was full of old cars, they took 12 months to remove.
We were not allowed to remove them, and he insisted they were vintage/antique/special cars, so no chance of chucking them.

Fortunately we were doing the house up, and spent most of the first year making it habitable, so outside wasn't a priority.

But my Dad worked overseas, and I remember my Mum sleeping with an airrifle by the bed, because he used to phone up and rant about how we had thrown him out of his home.

that last bit should say the previous owner used to phone up, not my dad!

Ages ago, but would-be buyers endlessly stalling and stalling and stalling (evidently hoping to beat us down on price) until we got so fed up, advertised it ourselves and found a serious buyer.
Upon which the would-be buyer was pleading with us, his poor wife was crying her eyes out, please please please please please....

Tough! You had your chance.

I was selling a 1750 cottage built of stone. The walls were 3 feet thick, the floors were limestone slabs laid on earth (which means the walls can breathe), the doors and windows were all wonky because the size of the stones used for building dictated the size of the apertures - you get the picture, it was old and had charm. The first people to view looked suspiciously at the (horsehair and lime plaster) walls and asked if it had a damp proof course. I said, well no, as such a thing didn't exist when it was built. They then had a long conversation among themselves (4 adults) about how they would go about injecting the walls with chemicals to 'sort it', a problem which didn't exist. When I pointed out how thick the walls were they were aghast. If you don't like old properties, why view them? They gave the appearance of never having set foot in anything more than a few years old.
The other one, which is just plain cheek. Selling a probate property, listed and in a lovely Cotswold village. Priced to sell as we didn't want it hanging around. Loads of interest. First people to see it make an offer immediately, 50k under asking! Obviously we said no, and it sold for the full price within 24 hours. They were furious we hadn't accepted. But why try to knock down a reasonably priced property, new to the market, that you have been told there's loads of interest in? Some people are just plain daft.

But the land around (was not a garden) was full of old cars, they took 12 months to remove.
We were not allowed to remove them, and he insisted they were vintage/antique/special cars, so no chance of chucking them

Surely if you sell a property any stuff not removed prior to new people taking ownership is considered part of the sale?

If someone leaves stuff behind, you can’t be expected to hang on to it indefinitely in case they turn up 10 years later and decide they want it?

One of our viewers opened up by saying, "I'll not be putting in an offer, I'm just here to look round to see what's on offer for the money you're asking to compare with other houses".
We should have shown him the door at that stage, but were so flabbergasted we let him look round.

When I was younger my family bought a large house. When we moved in they had taken every lightbulb from every light apart from the one in the hall. It was winter, it was the 70s and it was up north so by the time we gained ownership of the house it was already dark outside and it was too late to go and get some bulbs so our furniture was moved in by 1 torch that the removal men had in their cab.
The following day the previous owners came round. They said that they had been very considerate not leaving us without light but could they have their lightbulb back.
There was a lot of shouting and they left without the bulb.
What really we didn’t understand was they had made a 50 mile round trip for one light bulb. It would have cost them more in petrol.

@Huginamugg

One of our viewers opened up by saying, "I'll not be putting in an offer, I'm just here to look round to see what's on offer for the money you're asking to compare with other houses". We should have shown him the door at that stage, but were so flabbergasted we let him look round.

Well, the idea's not completely off in principle but why would you say it out loud 🤦🏽‍♀️
I'm not at the stage of looking round any houses yet but I have every house, in my price bracket, saved on Rightmove so I can compare what sold/was listed for what money.