What happens if I can't empty house by completion day?

[competion]

What happens if there are still things in the house when the new owner arrives? Going as fast as I can but unlikely to be done by tomorrow...

People will post on Mumsnet moaning about you.

We are scotland but my friend bought a house, collected keys, went round and owner had not packed a thing. He got cross, moaned a lot but really wasn't much he could do other than help them.

The house, and everything left in it, will legally belong to the owner tomorrow.
I guess you could try speaking to the new owner about a day’s extension, but they’re quite likely to have already organised their own movers etc and will refuse the request.

From completion, it's his house so if that was me, I'd be putting your stuff outside and call the council to collect it, as you've abandoned it.

Or I'll ask my solicitor to send you the invoice for clearance services

@competion Depends on the new owners, sometimes they can just deposit it all outside with the help of the removals team or sue you because you are surely in breach of contract as the property is meant to be empty.

As someone who has arrived at a house 3 hours after completion to find them still packing I was fucking furious. We had driven over 3 hours to get there, they finally moved the last of their stuff out at 6pm, in darkness. We were livid. Fortunately because of the long journey we had paid for overnight storage so weren't actually moving our contents in until the next day.

Have you not got anyone to help you? Is it furniture or contents? If it is contents just put it all into moving boxes, do not sort it just dump it all in and deal with it at the other end.

The new owner will likely (and quite rightly) be very annoyed. You need to go faster. You don’t own it from completion. You have very likely contracted to give vacant possession on completion, so are technically in breach of contract if the property isn’t vacant. They could take action for breach of contract if they wanted to.

Call in friends and favours and family... pay the random teens lurking around to muck in (if you know them/their parents and they aren't up to no good)

That’s not true. Everything in it won’t belong to them unless it has been agreed in the contract that it will be included.

You will be being a big inconvenience and you could be asked to leave and anything left belongs to the new owners. They'd be highly unlikely to want it though.

You should be apologising profusely and not be the like CFs who did this to us and we couldn't move in till 6.30 then graciously offered us the opportunity to go in and use the toilet. It was our bloody toilet by then

If I was moving in, especially with a family, I'd be well pissed off, it's stressful enough as it is.
Is there a garage, or maybe a downstairs room, that you could move all your stuff into so at least the new owners can get their furniture etc. in? Even then I'd expect it all to be gone by the next day.

The property is theirs on completion. If it's just a matter of waiting an hour or two then they might be able to give you a little space, although they'll be expecting to sort the house out for themselves by the evening. But basically you need to leave and work out how to collect your stuff and hope they won't be obstructive.

As fast as you can with packing, whilst Mumsnetting?

With kindness, your priorities are all sorts of wrong here.

You spend all night moving things out.

if I was moving in I would start chucking your stuff out of the door/window-i wouldn't care of it got broke its now my house. presumably you have had however many weeks /months that this was coming as it was for sale, someone had put an offer in, you accepted, exchanged etc. You need to start boxing it up and getting ready to have it out tomorrow.

you basically can't stop until it's done 😂
lots of coffee.
anyone to help?

Worst case scenario they turn up with a load of stuff that they can’t move in they will send the bill for any incurred costs such as removal firm fees, storage costs, etc. and you will have to pay it.

We had this recently, the vendors were fannying around drinking tea, one of them in their dressing gown and wanted to go and get a shower.

They soon shifted when we and our removal men went in piled all their shit up in the front garden in the rain.

'As fast as you can with packing, whilst Mumsnetting?

With kindness, your priorities are all sorts of wrong here.'

In fairness it's my go to eeek help what do I do site to post on 😂 might be OPs - faster than phoning a friend

Hire a man with van to shift everything tomorrow morning. Ask family and friends to help you box it up.

Call in all your favours op. It's Sunday, so hopefully there will be people around to help. And you work through the night. It's a you problem not your buyers problem.

Did it come as a massive last minute surprise to you that you sold the house to someone else?

Is there a reason that so much is left until the day before? I assume that you knew the date a while ago?

Alternatively they may shove their way in and shove you out and lock the door. You don’t own the house after completion and have no right to be there. It could get quite nasty.

This is the king of thing I have recurrent nightmares about. Best of luck!!

Well put it this way, how would you feel if you moved into your new place and all the owners stuff is there so there was no room for your stuff?

You would obviously think that person to be a disrespectful incompetent idiot if you turned up to this. I mean, how many weeks have you had to prepare for it?

If you really can't do it then you might wanna give them a heads up, offer to pay any extra expenses they incurred and be apologetic about it.

Going by the tone of your post it might not occur to you that you are in the wrong.

This.

Selling a house takes bloody forever. No one is ever surprised by it all moving at the speed of light, and suddenly discovering they no longer own their house.