Final property viewing before exchange: what should we ask the vendors?

[ErlingHaalandsManBun]

DH and I are going to view the property we are buying one last time before exchange of contracts. Its more just to refresh our memories over one or two things but we want to make sure we ask any questions about the house while we have the vendors there to ask face to face.

What kind of things do we need to ask our vendors?
What kind of things should we be looking at?

We have thought about things such as how the cooker/heating works, what day is bin day, and taking a mental note of where the power points and plug sockets are in each room.

Anything we are missing?

What things would you want to know before you moved in?

Any problems with the neighbours or noise.

Measurements you might need.
Check they are leaving all the appliances, curtain rails. They should unless otherwise discussed but people are cheeky sometimes. Someone I know was surprised the seller removed a fixed bathroom cabinet.
Ask for any instruction books to be left out on work surface.
Ask who their internet and energy providers are.

Flush all the toilets, turn on all the taps and showers, ask for instructions on all appliances, clarify what they are leaving.

Why would you need to ask about bin day, you can look that up on the council website?!

There's no way I'd be giving a buyer a training session on the cooker or heating. How long do you intend to be round there?

You can Google most cooker etc instructions anyway. And they're all pretty simple.

Yeah I mean if you haven’t exchanged yet I’d just keep it short & sweet. Aak essential things, maybe measure windows if needed. Anything else you can ask later or you’ll be able to find the info elsewhere.

And definitely don’t do this! 🤣

Don't ask too much!
Cooker: no
Heating: maybe
Bin day: look up on line.
Don't ask about neighbours or noise - the time for that was before offering. Ditto taps and toilets.

Check the place is in roughly the same condition as when you offered.

Measure windows if you need to buy some curtains before you move in.

Ask if anything has changed since filing in TA10 - what's being left should all be in there.

Appliances, curtains etc should all be covered in the contract. I don't think I'd be asking them much really - if you're about to exchange this should literally be for measuring up and checking that it's not been trashed.

Are you planning or have you had a survey done ? I hope you have.
Check about boundary fences, whose is whose. Are the boundaries clear ?
I am assuming you have had the house assessed and a survey done. But do check for boundaries.
And actually I would try to meet the neighbours too. Are they mad or do they seem normal !

Where the main stopcock is and if there are further stop taps within the house.

I could do but far easier just to ask them don't you think? 😂

What are you going to do if you can't work the cooker or there's a plug socket missing?

No. All the different bin days will be on the council website.

You know bin days usually shift with bank holidays? Much easier to look it up. I don't know why you're doing another viewing when presumably you're fairly close to exchange and the sellers will not have the patience to be showing you how to use the cooker for goodness sake!

OP, these are hand over questions. This final view before exchange is a new concept. Use it to take measurements and plan your move. Yes, an opportunity for you to get cold feet and pull out and also the time to give confidence to the people you are buying from.
a broken tap is irrelevant and you should have checked neighbour issues by now.

They should already be aware of what is being left - this would have been disclosed/ agreed on the inventory.

For one their bin systems are different to ours. They have different colour bins etc. Far easier just to chat to the sellers about this stuff face to face when we see them IMO.

Get a new one 🙄

Honestly this is not a nit picking viewing. We want the house and have done our due diligence, had surveys etc.

The point of the viewing is to go over one or two things with the sellers about the general running of the house, and to look where plugs are situated so we can plan where we put our stuff when we get in.

Don’t do this 😂😂😂

Absolutely,

The point of the viewing is literally to refresh ourselves as we haven't seen the house since we offered last October.

Its more of a hand over than anything else.

We did all the 'ask about the neighbours', turn the taps on stuff when we did our second viewing before we offered.

We have had searches and surveys and we want this house.

This is not a nit picking viewing, we know what we are getting. Its more that this is a chance for us to ask the sellers things we may need to know about the house while we can.

Thanks.

Some good things here that we didn't think about such as the stop cock and asking them to leave instructions for the appliances.

Just to be clear, we have done our due diligence on this house. Had searches and surveys and we know what we are buying.

This viewing is merely a once over to refresh ourselves as we haven't seen it since we offered last October.

Also its a chance to ask 'handover' type questions of the sellers. For example we don't know if the hob is an induction hob. If it is we need new pans!

We have absolutely no intention of pulling out so are not going there to nit pick. But we also have some measuring up to do. The house needs a side gate as we have dogs so we need to measure up for that and get gates fitted as soon as we can when we get in.

Thanks for those that made good suggestions. Much appreciated.

We are doing another viewing because its common sense to do so. 🙄

We have had to ask them to do some things to the house to satisfy building regs so it makes complete sense to just cast our eye over these things before exchange. Any sensible person would do the same thing.

Of course we are not going to ask the sellers to show us how the cooker works but we will take the opportunity to ask them if its an induction hob because if it is we need new pans and we can get those ordered ready to be delivered just after we move in.

This is more of a handover viewing and I think going back for a last look before exchange is pretty standard procedure these days.

We did when our buyers came for their final viewing last week.

They asked how the heating worked and the cooker and we showed them. It was fine and we didn't mind, it is easy enough to do and it took a matter of about a minute each. No training session 🙄just a quick demo.

We will be there no more than 30 minutes I would imagine. Its a handover viewing and to just cast our eye over one or two things before exchange and do some measuring up.

Do they have the paint colours or half finished tins of paint in case of touching up? Even if you are going to repaint, could be useful in the short term