House purchase - rights regarding items left in new house

Pollycat

Hi
Just a quick question on behalf of a friend:

He recently bought a house and moved in a couple of weeks ago.

The outgoing owners were a nightmare on moving day, they were very disorganised and hadn't properly packed their stuff.
For example, they were leaving the fridge but left it full of their food. They had agreed to leave certain bedroom furniture but had left them full of their clothes.
He had to ring them to ask them to come back and collect this stuff.

Anyhow, they left a couple of items behind that they had put on the contents list as taking with them.

What is the legal position regarding these items now that my friend has taken possession of the house?
Do they still belong to the old owners i.e. can they ask to come in and remove them or can my friend refuse to allow that?

I have read/heard somewhere that if someone doesn't take items that they have said they will, a penalty can be charged (but that may be a total load of tosh ).

My friend doesn't want to do anything like that but would like to know where he stands if they do get in touch about these items.


Thanks for any advice.

theartfullodger

The position is the same as outlined here for tenants leaving things ...
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/content/uncollected-goods-in-rentals

Just because I leave my expensive watch in the hotel room/rented house/sold-house when everyone knows it's mine doesn't mean it is no longer mine nor that the hotel/landlord/new-owner can do what he likes with it.

Did any of the contract paperwork cover this issue??

I'd write a calm polite letter/email to them & state food has been unpacked and placed on drive etc etc.. So it;s still their stuff, their responsibility etc and hope they come round sharpish. I wouldn't actually remove it from fridge mind...

Pollycat

theartfullodger wrote: »

The position is the same as outlined here for tenants leaving things ...
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/content/uncollected-goods-in-rentals

Just because I leave my expensive watch in the hotel room/rented house/sold-house when everyone knows it's mine doesn't mean it is no longer mine nor that the hotel/landlord/new-owner can do what he likes with it.

Did any of the contract paperwork cover this issue??

I'd write a calm polite letter/email to them & state food has been unpacked and placed on drive etc etc.. So it;s still their stuff, their responsibility etc and hope they come round sharpish. I wouldn't actually remove it from fridge mind...

My friend is not wanting to keep these items. They are not expensive items.
As far as the food/clothes are concerned, my friend texted them and they came and collected them. That's sorted. I included that information as an indication of how sloppy they were during the move.

The items left will need unscrewing and my friend is wanting to decorate and doesn't want to do that and these people to come back and mess things up.
He doesn't see why he should have to go to the trouble of taking these items down when the out-going owners should have taken them down prior to the move and taken them with them when they left the house at the agreed time or be inconvenienced with his plans for his new house.

These items were included in the list of items they intended to remove removing from the house when they moved out.

Evil_Olive

Not a legal person (perhaps one will be along in a minute?) but common sense to me indicates that he should write to them, listing the items to be removed (with due care on their part), giving them a reasonable time limit to come and get them, after which time the new owner will assume that they forfeit ownership of the goods and they will be disposed of as the new owner sees fit.

(I know that the law doesn't always follow common sense though )

Davesnave

Pollycat wrote: »

The items left will need unscrewing and my friend is wanting to decorate and doesn't want to do that and these people to come back and mess things up.
He doesn't see why he should have to go to the trouble of taking these items down when the out-going owners should have taken them down prior to the move and taken them with them when they left the house at the agreed time or be inconvenienced with his plans for his new house.
.

To be honest, this doesn't sound like something worth starting a thread about.

IMO your friend should just get over himself and remove whatever he needs to remove, rather than waste time standing on his high principles, or just sitting on his backside!

Life is too short to bother over minutiae like that.

Pollycat

Davesnave wrote: »

To be honest, this doesn't sound like something worth starting a thread about.

IMO your friend should just get over himself and remove whatever he needs to remove, rather than waste time standing on his high principles, or just sitting on his backside!

Life is too short to bother over minutiae like that.

Thanks for the advice.

All these years of posting and I didn't realise there was a list of subjects deemed worthy of starting a thread about.

My bad.

Davesnave

Pollycat wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.

All these years of posting and I didn't realise there was a list of subjects deemed worthy of starting a thread about.

My bad.

Yes, I'm learning too. I didn't realise that a dishonest opinion was what might be called-for on some occasions

OK I concede that your friend's legal position might be worthy of a thread, but I was addressing the rather ridiculous notion of someone, apparently forced into inaction in their own home by the careless behaviour of others.

Our vendors were supposed to take quite a few things with them, which somehow ended up in the house/surrounds at completion. We are still using some, like the 6' freezer. We filled it on Day 1. The 15' pig arks were never mentioned, but we assumed they were meant to stay. I'm afraid the only item I did check on, just to make sure it was really gone at exchange, was the rotting 10 tonne lorry.

So, perhaps my perspective on this might be somewhat different from your friend's. :rotfl:

Pollycat

Exactly where & when did I ask for a dishonest opinion?

I thought I asked for the legal position.
I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for your opinion of my friend's attitude.

Obviously we are both incredibly naive to expect that once a contract has been signed & exchanged, the vendors would be out of a house that no longer belongs to them together with all their possessions that they intended to take with them.

I:m not the slightest bit interested in your pig arks. :rotfl:

Davesnave

Pollycat wrote: »

Exactly where & when did I ask for a dishonest opinion?

I thought I asked for the legal position.
I'm pretty sure I didn't ask for your opinion of my friend's attitude.
You received a full answer to the legal question. You then went on to add reasons why your friend was being inconvenienced, which I commented on, as I felt he was being a tad silly.

If you write extra information on a public forum, you should expect responses based on that. Others' opinions are likely based on their experiences.
Obviously we are both incredibly naive to expect that once a contract has been signed & exchanged, the vendors would be out of a house that no longer belongs to them together with all their possessions that they intended to take with them.
Naive? You decide. While you understand the legal position, the situation in the real world is somewhat different, as shown on this current thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5065487
My point was that it's often not worth trying to pursue people who behave badly.
I:m not the slightest bit interested in your pig arks. :rotfl:
Hmmm, it sounds as if the above thread may not be something you'd want to read.

............................................................................

Pollycat

D'y know, I must be naïve.
I really expected a better class of response on this board.
Your replies are more suited to the Arms or DT.

WOW!

Not only do you think you have the final say on what topics can be posted on MSE, you also seem to feel you can control what is actually written.

What a mega-important person you must be.

As for expecting people to adhere to contract terms, yes I do.
In the times I've moved house, I've been out of my old house, complete will all the possessions I'm taking to my new house leaving everything I've said I would within the deadline for moving.

I don't see how that can be so hard to do - or so hard an expectation to understand.
But it's clear you do have problems understanding that.

There is bad will from this house sale, from the initial offer, through negotiating items to be left, to the final move out so that is why my friend wanted to know.

Whoops! Sorry, there I go again, adding 'extra information'.
Davesnave, the (self-appointed) forum police, will not take kindly to that, I'm sure.

I have no interest in reading through what crap other people find in their houses, but thanks for the link anyway.
I though it might have some relevance to my thread, but I ought to have known it wouldn't have.

Thanks to Evil Olive and theartfullodger for their replies.

Lioness_Twinkletoes

Pollycat wrote: »

My friend is not wanting to keep these items. They are not expensive items.

Would he want to keep them if they were?