Question about completion day

tiggerkid

Hi all,

We finally exchanged on our house today. Completion day is next week and I have removals booked in and all that fun but solicitors told me that although generally we should be able to get the keys to our house after midday, nobody knows whether the funds will reach the sellers by then, so they can't really tell, which I completely appreciate.

However, the issue is that the removals company told us that we can only have an early morning appointment and it will take then 3-4 hours to move everything out. This means we will be out of our current house way before lunchtime. We aren't moving far, so will be at our new house possibly around lunchtime if not before then.

What happens if we can't collect the keys when we arrive to our new house? Do we just hang around until we can? This, in theory (worse case scenario!) can be hours! And the removals people told me they will charge for waiting by hour.

Could anyone please share their experience?

As ever thank you to everyone for your contribution.

Gwhiz

You have it in one - you wait until completion and then pick up the keys.

So you could be waiting 30 minutes or it could be a few hours. Hopefully the former.

Guest101

It depends completely on size of chain and your position in it. Worst case your looking at around 5pm, but that's rare. Not a lot can be done about this

mgtr

Will be worth finding out if the removal company charge 'waiting time'.


If they do just arrange a 9am start time. But bear in mind your legally obligated to provide vacant possession so you do have to be out for lunchtime.


For more info on how completion day runs : http://moversandstorers.co.uk/key-release-moving-day/


The format is the same for everyone within the chain.


Generally the higher up the chain you are - the later you'll get your keys. This is explained in the link.

System

hope all goes well for you we are completing tomorrow but fortunately we are only selling and have already moved out and the buyers are FTB.

tiggerkid

Thanks, everyone. Our sellers have already moved out. Our buyers' buyer is chain free. I did book the move for 9 am, which I was told is the latest they can do for our move. I rather hope we can be out by midday as they advised us to have 3 men on the day and I can't imagine how it would take 3 guys 4 hours to move all our stuff out. We don't really have that much stuff, but I guess the estimate was done based on the average house of our size, so fair enough.

The removals company said they will charge £50 + VAT per hour for waiting, so I certainly hope that we won't have to wait until 5 pm to get the keys!

There isn't a lot we can do by the sounds of it, so I guess I should just be happy that we managed to exchange after months of waiting and dealing with useless estate agents, dumb solicitors on all sides, difficult buyers and uncooperative sellers!

lavalamp

We were in the middle of a chain of just 3 - our buyer, us and the house we were buying and we didn't get our keys until about 2.30, even though our buyer was in just after midday....

Vintageryan

£50 plus the VAT seems quite reasonable for every hour over.


3 guys must be on at least £10 a hour each doesn't leave much change.

TBagpuss

Do the moved have the option of insurance? I think the ones I was looking at (before my sellers changed their minds about selling (Grrrr)) had an option to pay about £35 'insurance' - if you paid that when you booked, then it covered extra costs due to delay.