Removal of carpet request

[HangryBrickShark]

Buyer has asked if we can remove carpets from our three bedroom house which is fully carpeted throughout prior to them moving in.

We are 9 months into the sale process on a simple straightforward 50% shared ownership sale. Buyer is a first time buyer with mortgage offer in place, we are moving into a house bequeathed to me so no chain.

We had a RICS survey stating house was worth 300k so £150k with 50% shared ownership. Buyer said their mortgage lender looked historically at the house next door which was sold 4 yrs ago for £135k and said ours was therefore only worth that. Our solicitor or estate agent never fought our corner. Buyer allegedly went to another mortgage lender who said they'd only offer them £135k. We reluctantly agreed on that price. Then our case file got transferred to a new fee earner at another office. This has delayed things considerably.

The solicitors on both sides are incredibly slow and the estate agent is a waste of space, never chasing progress for us. We are stuck with who we are abke to use as the pool of solicitors are determined by the housing association that own our home.

The buyers solicitor finally sent enquiries to us which we answered promptly and returned to our solicitors but were not then returned to buyers solicitor for a week. 7 weeks on from the date they were returned I rang our solicitor to find out why everything had stalled and why they'd not proactively chased them. The next day we received the TR1 and the Contract, both showing a different sale price. Honestly, you couldn't make it up. New one sent by buyers solicitor (well not a new one just incorrect info crossed out and amended) 🙄and no apology from our solicitor who obviously is not doing his due diligence by checking the documents are correct before forwarding them onto us for signing. If he made that glaringly obvious mistake how many more has he made?

Now today our solicitor has received an email from buyers solicitor saying they want carpets removing from the property.

Not only will this mean additional work for us, it will also have a cost implication to get someone to pull them all up and skip them. We feel they are calling all the shots and we don't want to lose our buyer but neither do we want to be manipulated in this way. We really don't want to pander to them like this.

How would you respond to this request for carpet removal? I've never heard of such a thing. If we do go with their request, how much do you think we should ask to cover our costs, bearing in mind the additional work/time and cost of a skip?

Our solicitor should be advising us and helping us with this but he doesn't.

Tell them yes but it will cost x. Double the actual cost
The skip cost plus the number of hours it will take you at £25 per hour each

personally I would say £1000

No way, I’d tell them (tactfully) to bugger off. If you agree to this you can guarantee there will suddenly be something else and even if there weren’t, it sounds like they’ve had their own way right up to now, including a very good price, so you need to push back.

If they are willing to pull out as a result, they were never serious in the first place.

Exactly this!

Lazy buggers! That's their job!

Imagine they pull out last minute and your house has no carpets....

I would tell them to piss off.

Absolutely not. Anything can happen. They can pull out and you are left with no carpets to put the house back on the market with.

Ridiculous.

They buy the house then it’s theirs to do whatever they want to it but it’s sold as seen .

I asked for the carpets to be removed from the first house I bought. I would only have skipped them and I didn’t want to pay to do that. However, I didn’t ask for the price to be drastically reduced or mess the seller about.

knock it back to them either with a flat no, or a cost for you to do so.

No absolutely not. As others have said they can pull out last minute.

We had this once, they asked if we can take the carpets up. We said no, when you buy new carpets the carpet fitters will take the old one away. Buyers were astounded by this

Tell them that you can’t remove the carpets until the house is there house / as if the sale was to fall through at this stage / you’d be left with a house without carpets and that’s not a selling point.

so until they have purchased the house the carpets shouldn’t be removed ( leave it there, as no fucking way are you then removing the carpets in someone else’s house - as if you damaged anything…)

I think a polite

"Yes, we would be prepared to do that for you but the cost is X. We would not unfortunately be in a position to cover that for you on top of all our other moving expenses. Would you be happy to add X at the time of exchange and we will ensure the carpets are removed prior to completion"

At the end of the day it's tough to move on a shared ownership - but they are taking the Michael if they think you should cover this cost. Particularly when you already compromised on the price quite significantly.

No.
Don't do it. You'll need to completly empty the rooms to do it, whilst still living in the house.
It's also really dirty work.

"The carpets are fitted, and as such form part of the fixtures included in the sale as previously stated"

Absolutely not, do not entertain reducing the value of your home by removing carpets for them. They can do it themselves after purchase is complete.
Property sale is a negotiation, and the only one who cares about your interests is you. So you need to stick to your guns and instruct solicitors/estate agents accordingly and in writing.

No. It’s clearly something they should do and you do not want to be stuck with a house with no carpets. They can book hotel and storage for their first few days of ownership and do it then.

Omg such a long post for such a simple question!

They are ftb and trying their luck but will not be wanting to withdraw from the purchase now. Just reply with a firm no.

Hat a strange comment. It's a long post because I wanted to explain how we've already reduced the property by 15k. And that its taken us until this point to get anywhere at all in case it had any bearing on the answers given. And to explain how useless our solicitor/estate agent are.

You would be mad to do that . Having to move all your furniture around , then having dirty bare floors , underlay deteriorates leaving dusty mess all over the floor which you will get on the bottom of your furniture. The cost to you and time it will take . You living with empty dirty floors for however long , not to mention odd nails on gripper rods that will catch you out . All that for the buyers to potentially pull out and leave you with a house with no flooring which will be harder to sell and horrible to live with .

They've accepted a price for what they've seen. Any cosmetic changes will cost them. I would say no.

Another vote for “absolutely not”. Have they considered the fact you’d have to remove furniture from the rooms to do this when it will be far easier for them to do when you have left? It’s a mental idea

Definitely don’t remove them, when we moved into our house the sellers removed the carpets but left the old underlay which was blue and had crumbled so everything was covered in blue dust as underlay was obviously very old. Personally I wouldn’t spend anymore money, as you’ve already lost enough.

I think what frustrates me the most is that when I was a conveyancing secretary the solicitor i worked for would never have sent paperwork out that he hadn't thoroughly checked for accuracy. To send us the TR1 and Contract for signing which had different sale prices on is very bad.

He would have also sent a letter/email to the sellers explaining the implications of removing carpet, the pros and cons, the estimated cost, and would have suggested that if we did go down the route of removing carpet this was only done AFTER contracts were exchanged so that if the buyer delayed we would at least receive 4% of the HSBC Bank of England based rate and if they pulled out they would suffer severe financial loss.

But none of this has been discussed with us.

It is very shoddy. And makes me angry that our sale is being handled by a legal assistant and not a solicitor.

so it’s not the carpets that the issue it’s the solicitor?

I would not remove carpets and tell them why. They are CF but first time buyers it’s fair enough they are chancing their arm.

Your onward property is not in a chain so I would find other buyers. The £135k valuation doesn’t sit right with me. Can you rent it out or is that considered sub letting?

if you have worked in cocneyancing it’s quite simple for you to draft an email like you have said and send it to you solicitor to forward to theirs.

I have found the solicitors i have used for 4 sale/ purchases that only one has been any good.

This. Unless they are in such a condition that might be seen as a positive?

Just say no, sorry no can do. They’re not going to pull out because you’ve left the carpets in!