Sellers asking for additional monies for fittings after sale of property

When_is_the_reset?

businessreader wrote: »

Shelly,

I would strongly urge that you do not follow the 'advice' of some here and start thinking that you can charge the ridiculous amounts suggested as storage charges. If you even begin to believe such 'advice' you could end up the real loser in all this. You have to be reasonable, a word that is common in legal disputes. You will intuitively know what is or is not reasonable. Can you imagine any commercial undertaking charging £1000.00 to store a few second-hand items? Paul1964 offers the most sensible comment on the matter, in my opinion, but I would suggest that before you get into any discussion with your own solicitor you first of all clear up whether or not he/she belives that he/she [this equality thing can be annoying :-) ] thinks that a fee is due for sorting it out. I'd guess you wouldn't want to pay your solicitor twice for the same thing i.e properly arranging the purchase.

If you do not see yourself ever wanting the items that were left then consider putting them in a hut or garage for a while to keep them safe and start the clock running on a sensible weekly storage rate. You tell the other people to arrange an uplift asap and if nothing happens before the value of storage equals the value of the items then a quick check with your solicitor will tell you if you can sell, dump or keep the stuff.

I see a certain lack of a sense of humour here.... Chill out man... I don't think anyone was seriously advising charging £1000 for storage.

To the OP - tell the vendors to collect the junk within 48 hours otherwise it will be 'disposed' of. Of course, this 'disposed of' may mean you keeping it.

Or do what I would do and just ignore it and they will almost certainly disappear.

One thing is absolutely certain - there is no way you are liable for a £1000 payment. I would love to see this one go to court.

businessreader

"I see a certain lack of a sense of humour here.... Chill out man... etc etc "

I could see what you mean if there were some real indication of flippancy but I don't see any. Clearly, the lady was looking for some advice. As for loving to see anything going to court, I see nothing flippant about that either. Coming back to the point, which is trying to help someone save money, you should never go anywhere near a court unless you are absolutely minted, can afford to lose the cash, don't care or have full legal aid [a pipedream these days] to cover the costs. Even with legal aid, if you 'win' you are still likely to lose as the 'winnings' will likely be taken away to pay the solicitor's fees - the ultimate sting in the tail that is hidden in the fine print. Things might be different south of Hadrian's Wall, but I suspect not. There you are - a bit of humour :-)

googler

OP, how long has it been since you moved in?

If more than a few days, and I were in your shoes, anything not included as per the contract would have been thrown out, thrown in the bin or taken to the tip.

If you've been good enough to keep any of it, tell the previous owners that if they want it, they can come and collect it at an appropriate time, but you're not paying £1000 for stuff that wasn't explicitly agreed as part of what you bought......

MobileSaver

googler wrote: »

OP, how long has it been since you moved in?

OP said "We purchased our property over a month ago."

I'm beginning to wonder if it's the OP's solicitor who has made the mistake...

Ulfar

businessreader wrote: »

"I see a certain lack of a sense of humour here.... Chill out man... etc etc "

I could see what you mean if there were some real indication of flippancy but I don't see any. Clearly, the lady was looking for some advice. As for loving to see anything going to court, I see nothing flippant about that either. Coming back to the point, which is trying to help someone save money, you should never go anywhere near a court unless you are absolutely minted, can afford to lose the cash, don't care or have full legal aid [a pipedream these days] to cover the costs. Even with legal aid, if you 'win' you are still likely to lose as the 'winnings' will likely be taken away to pay the solicitor's fees - the ultimate sting in the tail that is hidden in the fine print. Things might be different south of Hadrian's Wall, but I suspect not. There you are - a bit of humour :-)

At no point did I suggest ridiculous amounts but the seller can be held liable for the costs of disposal as they have not acted to the terms of the contract.

I have personal experience of this where a seller left a whole loft full of junk, they were given the option of coming and collecting or paying for its disposal. In the end they paid for the disposal, which is not as cheap as you would think if you use a reputable company.

businessreader

Never suggested that you did ulfar, - read the other replies and you will see who is referred to in my response. Otherwise, you are right but I'd guess that removing a few items from around the kitchen and the curtains would be a lot cheaper than a massive quantity from the awkwardness of a loft.

WeBeBroke

MobileSaver wrote: »

OP said "We purchased our property over a month ago."

I'm beginning to wonder if it's the OP's solicitor who has made the mistake...

I was under the impression that if the property is still in your house 30 days after completion and the original owners have failed to collect it, it's legally yours.

Just ask your solicitor for clarification - however, if you had no fixtures and fittings list from him....he/she may not be so great so maybe ask another one for advice.

debtdesperado

I wouldn't automatically start saying you are going to charge storage, as you are then acknowledging that the stuff is theirs and then you would probably be liable for some sort of duty of care over it if anything got broken etc, so that may come back and bite you harder.

A month does seem to be an unreasonable amount of time; presumably they did their own moving and therefore they knew what was left in the house and didn't want it. It sounds as if someone mentioned to them that they shouldn't have left it as they could have charged money and now they are just trying it on. I would write back (through your solicitor - ask your solicitor to check that the mistake is not his/hers) that unfortunately you assumed the items were now unwanted and therefore disposed of all the items and if their solicitor was negligent then they need to pursue their solicitor for compensation. I wouldn't be too aggressive, given that they know where you live (have you changed the locks since you moved in?!).

The only exception I would say to this is that if you moved in and you found things that obviously weren't meant to be left behind, such as a jewellry box full of jewellry etc, in which case personally I would have raised this straight after completion and offered to give it back, rather than keep quiet and effectively steal it. I don't think in such a case, any court would find that this was 'yours'.

The situation is a bit muddier where the stuff left behind is more of a fixture, but is also valuable - a good example is an aga which the sellers wanted to sell at an additional cost. Still, I don't think they could just ask you for money. If it really was a solicitor's mistake, then they are insured, so the sellers can get the value by making a claim through that, rather than asking you.

Charliezoo

The vendor must have been mad to agree to exchange and then complete without having seen a penny of the money for the stuff they were trying to sell. If I was a seller offering items for extra money I would expect either the cash or a signed contract stating how the money would be paid and I would want this sorted before exchange.

Surely if they've not made this happen it's their own fault and they can expect to have effectively lost the items left behind. You could quite easily moved in on completion day and taken the whole lot down the tip. I did that once when I moved into a flat years ago. I thought I'd make use of the van by getting rid of the manky furniture left behind. It never even crossed my mind that the sellers may have wanted it back/want £ for it.

DVardysShadow

Oh, it is simple. If item X is left, with value £X. then the options for the vendor are 2 * £X for storage, or 0.2 * £X to buy it [if you actually want it]