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Original poster

Completion at 10:30, got keys at 2:30pm. Cheeky?

46 replies

SunnyV · 03/08/2022 17:45

And to add insult to injury, the house was filthy and the vendor left tons of junk behind including a mattress, bedding, garden furniture etc.

Am I right to be annoyed that she didn’t surrender the keys for four hours?

OP posts:
Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 03/08/2022 17:50

Personally yes I think you are right to be annoyed. - had exactly the same with our vendor, except he hung in for 7 hours, the estate agent were very apologetic and only threatening to call the police sent him packing. Dh was happy to change the locks with him still in the property……

still clearing his crap out six weeks later. Add insult to injury, completion was on the day the vendor specified a month earlier, so he couldn’t exactly say he didn’t know when completion was being aimed for. I’m still angry.

CraftyGin · 03/08/2022 17:51

My DS had to wait about 4 hours for keys a couple of weeks ago, but at least the place was spotless.

HappyHappyHermit · 03/08/2022 17:54

Had the money hit the account? Often solicitors will stipulate you have to be out by 12 but cannot have keys until the money has actually arrived, rather than when it left the account, as this can take a bit longer. The rubbish is annoying, I think if you go through your solicitor you can charge them for clear up of junk etc, unless it is things they said they were leaving.

WinterMusings · 03/08/2022 17:55

YANBU to be annoyed & frustrated.

However, it seems like, for whatever reason, she was down to the wire. Not everyone is good at organising help or themselves!!!

when I moved in here the previous owners didn't surrender the keys until 4pm (should have been 20) they left a ton of shit too - broken beds/drawers, horrible crap. I phoned them (they run a local business so easy to find!!) and told them they had an hour to remove it before I got my solicitor involved & it started to cost them in legal fees, removals fees & whatever else. (They live local, have a van & staff!!). She said she left the stuff for me as she thought I might find it useful. I told her we both know that was a lie because it's all broken & old/dirty. One hour!!

her DH & a couple of their staff turned up, they were rude, but it was all removed.

I spent a couple of days cleaning it from top to bottom with a cousin who helped (I help her loads too).

was this today or are you thinking back?

ItsSnowJokes · 03/08/2022 17:56

I think you are being a bit unreasonable. No one knows what time you will actually complete and 10.30 is early. Most contracts state something like completion may be earlier but you have to be out by 1pm (not legal wording lol). We had our removal guys here at 7am but we still didn't leave till 11.45 and had completed at 9.30. No way could people be out by 9.30 (and it wasn't from us packing etc.... as we had paid the removals to pack the day before).

You are in your right to be pissed off that its filthy. That annoys the hell out of me.

knittingaddict · 03/08/2022 18:10

10.30 is very early. 2.30 is too late. Whenever we've moved it's been midday.

Also I've never moved into a house that wasn't very grubby. Some people just don't care about their buyers and it's very inconsiderate.

TooManyPJs · 03/08/2022 18:21

What caused the delay. 2.30 isn't that bad. You can't really expect anyone to be out before midday so it's not that much after.

Leaving the property filthy is not on but seems to happen a lot unfortunately. When we moved in here we cleaned solidly for two weeks and still didn't get it all. It was gross. The oven cleaner man was here for hours and very unhappy! Said it was the worst he'd ever seen!

DappledThings · 03/08/2022 18:25

We completed about noon and got the keys at 7.30. They were not even slightly moved out. Our men with van tried to help them but in the end stopped the clock on their time to go and watch football and came back later.

925XX · 03/08/2022 18:38

Regarding the junk left behind. Contact your solicitor as this is not Vacant possession. This happened to me and sellers has to pay for a skip for all the junk they left.

Bluevelvetsofa · 03/08/2022 18:45

Completed at midday, she was using a Transit van to move out. By 3pm we had to put her stuff in the garden. She left a filthy mess and some kitchen stuff had to be chucked.

RainbowsMoonbeams · 03/08/2022 18:49

Exactly the same thing happened with us. 7 hours after they got the money, we finally got the keys to the filthy house. They clearly hadn’t cleaned once since our offer was accepted!

Very annoying, I know. I can’t understand people doing this sort of thing.

Hope you are very happy in your new home though. Don’t let it spoil the excitement of it all.

Flopisfatteningbingforchristmas · 03/08/2022 18:49

Speak to your solicitor, you maybe able to claim from your vendors for the cost of having the junk removed.

outdooryone · 03/08/2022 18:51

I once had to also wait until mid afternoon.

I was greeted by pile of things in the street, and the vendor telling me that the removals company refused to move a 8' X 8' garden shed, and so I would have to buy the shed from them...

They had also booked a 'man with a van' type company thinking the new house was only half a mile away - forgetting that of course multiple van loads take time to load and unload.

The icing on the cluster f**k cake though was the phone call 3 months later asking if a) I had thier iron as they couldn't find it and b) their cat kept returning to the old house, so the sensible thing was for me to adopt it...

Some people are both chancers and disrespectful of others.

Afterfire · 03/08/2022 18:52

Midday is usual (ex Conveyancer).

Why did it take till 2.30pm??

Speedweed · 03/08/2022 19:05

Happened to me too, and the place was filthy. I think the sellers hadn't bothered cleaning for months and then paid for a cleaning service who didn't really do anything.

I think this is just how cleaners work when they know it's for a sale rather than an end of tenancy, because the buyer has to complain to the seller who then has to complain to the cleaning company to get any redress.

Favouritefruits · 03/08/2022 19:39

I see why you’re upset but was there a reason, once we stayed in our house until 5 because the removal company didn’t turn up until 2.30 there was nothing we could have done but to be fair I didn’t leave mattresses or anything else, I didn’t hover around though as I thought they’d prefer the key.

Crackercrazy · 03/08/2022 19:41

We had this too. our sellers tried to block me entering the house but I pushed past them. And the house was a tip. In the end we blocked the driveway with our removal van - they had to walk to the cash point to get money out to pay us for the cost of removing all their crap.

I would contact your solicitor OP and make them pay.

Original poster
SunnyV · 03/08/2022 21:01

The reason was simply that they had not finished packing! There was two weeks between exchange and completion.

OP posts:
Twiglets1 · 04/08/2022 07:04

Keys at 2.30 I don’t think is too bad. There was an occasion when we couldn’t move out until around this time despite employing professional movers & packers and being assured they could get us out by midday. It just all took longer than expected. We have also been on the other side (moved house lots of times) and had to wait until about 2.30 to get into a property- we were mildly annoyed but these things do happen.
What is unforgivable is the state they left the house in. There’s no excuse for that.

TooHotToTangoToo · 04/08/2022 07:13

Yes it would piss me off, the mess more so but it's a reflection on the seller. 2.30 isn't too bad as the solicitor needs to confirm money has transferred etc. my dh ran a removals company and 4 hours is about average.

We moved last year and I left our house spotless, cleaned inside and ontop of kitchen cupboards, cleaned skirting, windows, hoovered, mopped etc, it was spotless. The house we moved into, not so much, in-fact it was pretty gross and they left all sorts of shit in the garden

olympicsrock · 04/08/2022 07:19

I also think that keys at 2:30 is not too bad . Depends on how much there is to move out!

It often takes more than 4 hours to move things out and clean afterwards. After 3 is taking the piss though….

YANBU to complain that it is dirty.

DelilahBucket · 04/08/2022 07:19

Yes it's annoying but it's done now. We were the same, hanging around waiting for the keys after a morning completion. We finally got them at 6:30pm. The estate agent was royally pissed off at that point as well.
She left stuff everywhere, food in the freezer, bin liners of stuff and a half written (literally stopped mid sentence) note about how rushed she'd been because we made her move out so quickly! When we bought it we told her directly the date we'd need to be in by and she insisted it was fine as she already owned her new property and could move into it whenever. She still messed around not signing paperwork, not answering the phone etc. We had to threaten to pull out at one point because she was faffing so much.
All the stuff she left behind we took to the top. A week later the estate agent rang and asked when she could come and pick up the rest of her belongings. She didn't get the memo that moving out meant moving out, not "I'll use my old house as a storage unit after I'm gone".
But, all that said, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't kill anyone and was just one of life's annoyances.

Twiglets1 · 04/08/2022 07:30

DelilahBucket · 04/08/2022 07:19

Yes it's annoying but it's done now. We were the same, hanging around waiting for the keys after a morning completion. We finally got them at 6:30pm. The estate agent was royally pissed off at that point as well.
She left stuff everywhere, food in the freezer, bin liners of stuff and a half written (literally stopped mid sentence) note about how rushed she'd been because we made her move out so quickly! When we bought it we told her directly the date we'd need to be in by and she insisted it was fine as she already owned her new property and could move into it whenever. She still messed around not signing paperwork, not answering the phone etc. We had to threaten to pull out at one point because she was faffing so much.
All the stuff she left behind we took to the top. A week later the estate agent rang and asked when she could come and pick up the rest of her belongings. She didn't get the memo that moving out meant moving out, not "I'll use my old house as a storage unit after I'm gone".
But, all that said, in the grand scheme of things, it didn't kill anyone and was just one of life's annoyances.

It sounds like she had mental health issues to be so chronically disorganised and unrealistic about how things work

Plantpotpetal · 04/08/2022 18:20

It’s selfishness, plain and simple. Their time was worth more than yours. I’d go full on legal, can’t abide disorganization!

Kite22 · 04/08/2022 18:28

Well 10.30 was very optimistic, but moving is stressful to say the least.
2.30 moves to frustrating territory but just forget it and be thankful you are in.

Leaving the house filthy and leaving rubbish is a different things altogether.