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...

Do not help OP - This is not a problem of yours!

Similar happened when our friends bought a house, a massive do-er upper, stuff everywhere, so they just loaded it in vans and took it to the tip. On the last trip, they were most amused to find the seller climbing into the skips retrieving stuff with the tip man shouting at her that she wasn’t allowed to be in there!

Op, whilst that be ruining your plans, that possibly the last thing on her mind.

One of the most stressful life events moving house! Why not offer to go round and help them pack? They’re family after all. Edit - just seen the soft play. Sod that

This.
As a decent person it's clearly stressing you out, but it's not your fault. If she had awful life stuff going on and was doing her best to get it done I'd help. As it is I wouldn't be answering her calls for a few days.

Estate agent here:

most contracts will say vacant possession by 2pm - sometimes it’s 12pm but 2 is the most common.

generally, you get 3 hours grace time , until legal issues can be started. So that’s 5pm best case scenario.

anything left in the house after this point, IS NOT transferred to the new owners and you will still have a legal obligation to dispose of it, even after they have moved in. If you don’t then they can and will pass on disposal costs to you.

tell your sister to get her ass back from soft play, and pack all day and all night. Even a large house can be packed up and be ready for removal in 24 hours. Put all boxes in a front living room, including furniture, or better still a garage or front lawn if it’s not raining.

pray that completion doesn’t happen until gone 2pm, which is pretty common with a long chain, and if your sister has the number of the new buyers, I would suggest she calls them and explains her situation. They won’t be happy but at least it shows she’s trying.

any costs incurred by the buyer, due to your sister’s incompetence can and will be passed onto her. This includes solicitors fees for additional contact, late removal charges, hotel stays - this can easily rack up.

Call a removals team to assist you. If you haven’t cleared the house by the time that completion happens (usually after midday on day of final transaction), your buyer can call a removals team to remove everything and send you the bill. You would expect to receive this from your solicitor who will be contacted by your buyer’s solicitor.

I would be completely unavailable to help due to flu/whatever.

She will risk incurring additional fees if she isn’t out on time.

Hahaha good point!

a removals team packed our whole house in 3 hours.
sooo worth the money.

but tbh @competion not your circus not your monkeys.
don't get stressed about it.
it's your sister's drama and apart from maybe/possible looking after the dc for a couple of hours fill them up with sugar for maximum effect I wouldn't lift a finger.

Softplay when you're moving the next day might be an idea to get the kids out of the way but one parent needs to stay behind and keep going because they have to be out. To be honest I'd be round there sorting it out myself if needed to make sure it's done.

Oh it's your sister, well you are not there to bail her out. I personally would have had a bottle glass of wine and be unable to get there. So sorry, maybe next time you could give more warning and I'll be sure to be on holiday.

We were struggling to get packed up. We paid extra for the removal firm to pack for us. I know they haven’t got movers in this case but adding it in case it helps someone else.

This happened to us. We had completed and turned up to move at 2pm and the flat was still full of the seller's stuff. His 'mate with a van' was apparently running late. We had to leave our massive removal van parked in the street and went off to buy our removal men a late lunch. Got back two hours later and the seller STILL wasn't done. Actually had the cheek to ask if he could come back the next day. We got our guys to start moving us in and chucked everything left of his into the front garden and on the pavement. He was still out there sorting his stuff out an hour after we'd finished.

It depends on the contract that you have exchanged. If you did it to me, my solicitor would sue you for my additional costs.

This is why people have professional removal companies pack for them.

Your poor purchasers.

She needs to get as much help as she can and get this sorted. We moved in and the people before hadn't moved out yet and left a load of stuff for us to deal with, the house was also really dirty. I was pregnant and had just cleaned our old house beautifully and left a hamper for the new owners and then walked into chaos. I just cried and it really ruined what should have been a special day. I really think it is a shitty, selfish thing to do - she needs to find a way.

Happened to us many years ago. Actual buying process took ages because seller was a bit difficult. She didn’t want to move but her circumstances changed so she had to. Our vans were loaded when our solicitor phoned to ask if we could delay a few hours . We agreed .
By 5.00pm she still hadn’t moved !
We had people moving in to our house so had to get out . Ended up staying in a Travellodge for 2 nights. We were eventually reimbursed for hotel and van costs but it was awful.
House was filthy with bags of rubbish everywhere. I cried.
This was 2 weeks before Christmas.

Were you watching Strictly with a bottle of Merlot last night?

You HAVE to get out - the new people might have spent thousands in scheduling removals.

This is the big problem caused by exchanging and completing on the same day. Years ago you had a month to move out. Last time I moved house I asked for two weeks between exchange and completion to move all my stuff out. They gave me three days and complained when it wasn’t out by exchange. It cost me over £3000 to get someone to do it in time. I was furious and thought my buyer inconsiderate.

Consider what makes you so special that you don't have to have the house clear before the point where you literally won't own it and someone else is planning to move in?

You should have got paid a man and a van or similar before it got to this point. Now that it is at this point you need to try and get one for tomorrow. You're not special you know.

Your Sis could be sued - but the people that own the house

when we sold we had to be out of our house by 11am as the money had transferred and we no longer owned the house - but the house we were going to the money hadn't transferred and didn't until 2pm - so we sat outside with a van waiting - the house was empty as the owner had left the previous day, but we couldn't have the keys apparently until he money had gone through.

My friend brought a house and when they arrived with 3 small children the lorries etc the people said come back on Monday - they said sue us if you don't like it but we are not packed

they had to pay for two days of their stuff on the lorry, hotel rooms for three nights and finally go in on the monday

the people buying your sisters house might sue for the money it may cost them?

In this case my go to phrase is “your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency”.

Swiftly followed by “not my circus, not my monkeys”.

As far as our moves have been it’s usually between 11 and 2 you have to be out. So let me get this straight, they are moving tomorrow, running behind not ready- but are going to soft play!! Unbelievable!!

It depends on the contract that you have exchanged. If you did it to me, my solicitor would sue you for my additional costs.

This.

Our last house we had to sign to say we'd be out or incur costs - our stuff was going to storage anyway so it suited us.

We spoke to estate agent next door to IL she says increasingly costs are added as so many people are still trying to move out themselves. We thought we'd be unlucky with first house - 6pm DH refusing to leave estate agent office till keys are handed over - having completed 10.30 am that morning - no chain - pure luck we hadn't book removal that day and had told landlord next day.

In your shoes OP I'd be busy for rest of the day and out of phone contact - this is your sister problem to sort.

No because its abandoned.

You have no obligation to protect abandoned property.

The new owners did not 'borrow' these items and assume the care the OP sister will have left them in the new owners house without permission and it is now simply 'trash'. The new owner can even bill OP sister for disposing of this 'trash'.

I do wonder why on earth its done all at once, its rife for these scenarios.

Anyone remember the lady who was mad at the new owners who wanted in the house and her family was having a picnic inside and she wasn't happy?