Ordering furniture before completion?

DepositSaver

I exchanged contracts on Wednesday and am due to complete on 21st March. I'm in rented accommodation currently, and have only just given a notice to my landlord, so won't be moving in immediately on the 21st. I plan to do most of my moving on the last weekend in March. I need to buy white goods and some furniture, most of which can be delivered within a day or two, so I buy them at some point after completion and know they will be there by the time I move.

However, the bed frame I want will take 2-3 weeks to be delivered and I am in two minds about whether to order it now, so it might arrive last weekend in March, or at the worst the following weekend, or to wait till completion, and potentially have an extra week of sleeping on just a mattress. If I buy it now I will be buying on my debit card, not my credit card, as I am aware that lenders may do another credit check before completion. My worry is that if I buy it now and something goes wrong before completion (unlikely I know, but still possible), as well as being having to hurriedly find somewhere else to rent, I am stuck with a bed I don't need and can't store anywhere. What would others do? Am I being overcautious/paranoid? Should I buy now or wait until successful completion?

Green3

It is better to wait until succesful completion. The property market is in such a crazy boom situation at the moment that you never know who will pull out at the last moment for a better price. Also it is getting warmer these days so sleeping on a mattress for a few days will not be difficult.

StuC75

Given that you have already exchanged, then if you fail to complete you may have bigger worries than a delivery of a bedframe...

There is no chain below you.. so any problem would be with your purchase.. or up the chain but you could force completion through the solicitor..

DepositSaver

StuC75 wrote: »

Given that you have already exchanged, then if you fail to complete you may have bigger worries than a delivery of a bedframe...
QUOTE]

True! But it would be one extra thing to worry about that.

StuC75 wrote: »

Given that you have already exchanged, then if you fail to complete you may have bigger worries than a delivery of a bedframe...

There is no chain below you.. so any problem would be with your purchase.. or up the chain but you could force completion through the solicitor..

There's no chain above me either, so in theory nothing to cause any problem....

eddddy

Hi DepositSaver

If your ordering online, you might find that many places will only deliver to the cardholder's registered address. It's to reduce fraud.

So you might have to wait until you've moved and changed your address with the bank.

(But as others have said, having exchanged, the risk of not completing is very, very small.)

G_M

I see no problem with ordering between Exchange and Completion.

If the seller fails to Complete, you add the costs you incur (eg cancellation charge/storage et) to the costs you claim from the seller for failure to Complete.

But it is a 1 in 1000 likelihood.

DepositSaver

Thanks all.

The issue of only delivering to the cardholder's registered address hadn't occurred to me. I'll be ordering by phone (local firm who will deliver to a 2nd floor flat, unlike a lot of online companies) so will give them a call the check.

Owain_Moneysaver

DepositSaver wrote: »

My worry is that if I buy it now and something goes wrong before completion (unlikely I know, but still possible), as well as being having to hurriedly find somewhere else to rent, I am stuck with a bed I don't need and can't store anywhere.

I bought my beds from a local shop. Once paid for, they were happy to keep them in their warehouse for however long it took. They said they'd had one customer's beds in storage for a year (which is why they insisted in being paid up front).

DepositSaver

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

I bought my beds from a local shop. Once paid for, they were happy to keep them in their warehouse for however long it took. They said they'd had one customer's beds in storage for a year (which is why they insisted in being paid up front).

That's really useful to know thank you, will see if my local store would be willing to do the same.

pinkteapot

We ordered around £5,000 of stuff between exchange and completion. We had the day after completion off work and had five different companies delivering stuff that day, as we booked as many of the deliveries as possible in (to save taking time off work subsequently).

It didn't worry me. Collapses after exchange are exceptionally rare. The financial penalties for pulling out after exchange are so high that it would very rarely be worth it.

With any furniture order they will contact you to arrange a convenient delivery date, so you can put them off until completion. I ordered a whole load of bookcases from Ikea and they offered me a delivery date of a few days after I ordered. I phoned them and made it three weeks later, on the date I'd wanted.

Don't get stuff delivered to your current address beforehand as it's just more stuff to move.

pinkteapot

G_M wrote: »

But it is a 1 in 1000 likelihood.

Probably even less than that. Our solicitor had never had a sale or purchase fall through after exchange in her whole career, and she had a lot of experience.