House being left in a mess

[Slipslops]

I complete this week on a purchase which should have been straightforward but has been anything but, due to the sellers getting a messy divorce. They have made everything difficult. Fast forward to now and completion, and I drove past the house yesterday and the garden (visible from the road) has been left as a dumping ground. They have 4 days to clear this mess - but given how unreasonable they’ve been I don’t think they plan to. I will likely need 2-3 skips to clear what’s there. I was considering asking the EA to meet me at the house the morning of completion to check rubbish has gone from garden and house is empty, before releasing funds. I don’t know if I can do this? It’s just me and them in the sale so no chain will be affected. Has anyone had similar and have advice please?

Yes I would do that. Also speak to your solicitor and advise of what you intend to do in case you need to hold back money for clearance fees.

I would ask for another visit to see the inside / just price a full house clearance and ask your solicitor about holding the money.
And check any out buildings as someone I know bought and the ex-owner had dumped everything into a detached garage🤨

It's good you've seen it now. Get your solicitor to get in touch with theirs and see if you can withhold some funds just in case they don't clear it.

With my house before this the vendor didn't clear the back yard and all my solicitor said I could do was go to the small claims court.

I've known people where the house and garage has been left full of stuff. Some people have no pride

Don’t leave it until the morning of completion. Call your solicitor at 9 am on Monday and ask them to ask the vendors solicitor to get them to confirm vacant possession including all their stuff subject to a retainer on funds , and also alert the EA to tell them it needs to be cleared.

I agree that taking action now will be easier for you on completion. We bought a house from a divorcing couple. He’d gone and taken what he wanted, including leaving bare live wires from wall lights. She just didn’t get organised at all and much of her furniture ended up in the garden whilst she went to and fro with a Transit van.

She left stuff in the fridge, which we obviously binned and we also threw away a disgusting grill pan.

What @CarrieOnComplaining said.

I bitterly regret not popping by our house the day before completion just to check it out, and raising the alarm then.

Thank you everyone! Excellent advice. I’ll get on to it Monday.

Most sales contacts specify vacant possession. If the house and garden (and shed and attic) arent vacant (empty of all the previous owners items, rubbish, building waste etc) you can refuse to complete until they fix it. Alternatively you can complete but withhold x amount of money in escrow (which means the solicitors hold it on your behalf) to pay for a company to come in and clear out the stuff/make good). After this is done the escrow funds pay for the work and any left over money gores to the sellers.

It takes a while to organize this, so best to let your solicitor know you wish to do this/are going to be firm about vacant possession right now. They can then inform the sellers solicitors so that the seller has a chance to rectify matters themselves.

Either way, insist on a property viewing the day before completion to check on the state of things before any money is released/not released. Take photos at this viewing with time stamps (any modern phone does this) Its much easier to handle this problem before completion than be chasing them afterwards when they already have the money

Agree it is your solicitor you need to be speaking to / getting advice from.

Have you exchanged contracts yet or are you doing simultaneous exchange and completion? Your solicitor should give them a warning in advance that the rubbish needs to be cleared away or they will be charged for you to clear it in whatever method is most convenient for you, not necessarily the cheapest. And money held back from the purchase if that is possible (but it may not be, I don't know)

Yeh funds can be withheld, so ask for a viewing, take pictures and email your solicitor and get a quote for a house clearance. Good luck with the purchase and hopefully they do clear it out for you.

I’ve had to clear out a house which wasn’t as empty as it should have been (attic was full!) and do recall that we had the money back which we spent to clear it.

My relatives bought their current house in similar circumstances. When they got the keys they discovered all the kitchen granite surfaces had been damaged by hammer blows! . Was a total nightmare to unpick what had happened as the divorcing couple were blaming each other etc and they ended up out of pocket. They wish they had inspected before completion!

We looked at buying a house and when we viewed it we saw there were numerous holes in the walls and doors. The seller explained he was getting a divorce and he'd punched the holes during arguments. It was a nice house but we decided not to proceed.

Friends of ours bought from a horrible guy who had tried to prevent a divorce sale. He cut the electric leads for lights flush with the ceilings and I recall he smashed the range cooker. Imagine arriving at your house with a small baby and not having any light. Of course, he had to pay for all the damage.

Talk to your solicitor and EA about it when they open tomorrow. They should be able to remind the seller that they need to clear the place and can organise for some money to be held back just in case.

It’s a lot easier to do it this way round. Our seller got very overwhelmed and left the house full of stuff. We had to send a list of what was left to our solicitor, who then went to his solicitor and they negotiated an amount to send to us to cover the cost of house clearance. But we had to organise the clearance ourselves, pay for it upfront (the money took about a fortnight to arrive). Fortunately we weren’t moving in immediately otherwise it would have been an absolute nightmare. Far easier to put things in place in advance and make the seller deal with clearing the house.

I know a person who bought a house which looked clean but previous owners had packed the loft full of junk. Anyway one thing in loft was Xmas tree and a box of decorations. Friend contacted EA to ask them to come and remove it all or they'd get a skip and dump it all. No response. Friend got skip after 2 weeks and dumped it. 2 months later they came home from work to previous owners waiting outside house. They said they wanted Xmas decorations and Xmas tree. They were furious when friend said it had all been dumped into a skip.

We purchased a probate property back in January that we are currently renovating.

The executors were an absolute nightmare to deal with and they insisted on leaving furniture, white goods and other possessions behind. We had to tell the EA a number of times to tell them that we wanted the property completely vacant.

When we completed, the furniture was gone along with the white goods (apart from the cooker as they couldn’t get a gas safe engineer to remove) and we were ripping out anyway and would have needed a gas engineer… so we bit the bullet with that.

but we opened the loft and it was full of crap! We attempted to contact the executors to ask if they wanted it / hint at collecting it…. No answer…. They put a letter through the door last week asking for it. Told them it’s too late. We completed in mid January - the property had been vacant since November 2023 when their mother died. Over a year to move it. It was nothing sentimental- just books and records and other crap….. They then had the cheek to recompensate them 😂