New carpet before re-decorating?

[Bedtimewoes91]

The house we are buying is vacant and needs complete redecorating including skimming ceilings or removing artex and replastering.

It also needs new flooring throughout, and I'm considering asking the sellers if they will allow us to replace the carpet between exchange and completion.

I feel like this would be so much easier to do while the property is empty, but would it be absolutely mad to do it before all the rest of the (potentially messy) work?!

We don't have the option to stay anywhere else after completion unfortunately, and we also have a 1 and 3 year old, and a dog....so it would be really disruptive to change all the flooring with all our stuff in the house!

You really don't want new flooring down while a full house gets skimmed and redecorated. The dust gets EVERYWHERE, it absolutely won't feel like a new carpet when finished. All the tradespeople in and out of the house in their boots.

Plus, although it will be a pain for you to deal with, it would also be a pain for current owners to deal with while packing, with no incentive for them. What happens if they drop a tin of paint while moving out?

Why would you lay carpets in a property that isn't legally yours until completion?

Definitely the wrong way to go about it.
As the PP said, even if the current owners let you do this (and they are under no obligation to do so) the work has the potential to make a real mess of your brand-new flooring.

You would be insane to do that. Do not start working on a house that you don’t legally own yet.

Do the floors last if the walls need replastering etc as the level of dust is extreme

I had a chimney breast recently and he dripped wet plaster all over that rooms carpet and trod plaster dust all up the stairs. Don't do it!

No, no, and thrice no. The carpet is the last thing you change!

This is exactly what I thought - just needed someone to tell me it was mad 😂

As in the first line of the op, Property is vacant so current owners wouldn't have to be disrupted had we done it. Obviously I also understand they could have said no which would be fine.

Also, you wouldn't be able to paint the skirting boards properly with carpet down and they would forever look a mess.

Heard a story from an estate agent about someone who did something similar (but more disruptive) before completion and they died in the interim. Caused all manner of problems.

Yep, that too. At the very least the skirtings need painting first, and the paint needs to be really hard dry before carpeting (with oil-based paint I'd leave it at least a week, water based, at least 2 days). Otherwise you get carpet fluff stuck to the paint (as our predecessors here did, makes doing the skirtings a pain as they have to be sanded back a lot to get rid of it).
I see where you're coming from, as my workroom really needs a new carpet (along with the rest of the house) but it would be a total nightmare to do it now all my kit is installed.
Oddly enough, it's taken me four years here to realise that the 'funny smell' we sometimes get in the downstairs rooms which I though was from the badly sealed underfloor which plan to deal with when we redo the floors, or maybe the wallpaper which is now almost all gone, is coming from the carpets. The light bulb moment was last week, speaking to a previous occupant but one, who told us that their own predecessors smoked like a chimney and thy could never get rid of the smell. The carpets must be 1970s, some 1960s, though they are all awful we have kept them all down to keep out the draughts.
Oh well, we'll get there eventually.

My buyers asked for carpet cleaning access between exchange and completion. I wasn't occupying as I was working away. The solicitor said absolutely not, far too many risks.