Questions to ask seller before handing keys over

catterlen

J_i_m wrote: »

Indeed? Some people would seem very odd.

Yep.... They'd taped up the wire very carefully with tape and everything. Really weird. The whole house was ap random mess of stuff with things you'd think would be family keepsakes being left, and stuff like light bulbs taken.

Chanes

We made sure our house was cleaned, stocked with soap and toilet rolls with the details of all the work done, guarantees and trade people in a pack with a card and a bottle of wine.

The people we bought off took everything and the house was filthy complete with a toilet brush covered in... And an oven so caked in fat it had to be removed. We made a terrible mistake in our thinking about them, we thought a solicitor with a coup,e of kids may have standards, be something like decent and as we found out they lived like animals. it took days and days just to get the place clean and underneath the filth as bad, so much to replace.

Just because you are decent, never take for granted the person you buy off will be. I swear we must have viewed it, twice, blindfold or they made a surface effort and a lot of Febreeze on those visits.

Pixie5740

I was left a toilet brush with poo stuck in the bristles too. I was also left a plethora of junk in the attic and coal cellar. I wish I'd asked about keys to all the outbuildings mind you the coal cellar door is only held shut by propping a brick up on the door.

Caroline_a

Once sold a house back in the '80s to an elderly lady. Completion was due to be at 14.00 but she arrived with adult son at 9.00! We thought we'd be nice and allow her to put some of her stuff in the rooms we'd cleared while we were just finishing off emptying the attic and packing our van.

One of the things we were leaving was the cooker. Son decided that he would replace this.... and turned the electricity off without letting us know. Husband was at the time in the loft just getting the last of his tools, (it wasn't boarded), so suddenly he had no light! I was downstairs feeding my 2 week old baby and heard a massive crash - he dropped a very large vice through the loft opening (on purpose). Luckily it didn't break anything, but it could have been so much worse! He then had a few choice words with the son, and we asked them to wait in their van until 14.00!!

catterlen

Pixie5740 wrote: »

I was left a toilet brush with poo stuck in the bristles too. I was also left a plethora of junk in the attic and coal cellar.

Oh my god! I hadn't thought of this! In hindsight This is probably the one thing we didn't get left behind???:eek:

Out,_Vile_Jelly

I bought a house in a probate sale from distant relatives of the deceased so I had no chance to ask anything. Really hasn't been a big deal though.

TBagpuss

Pixie5740 wrote: »

I was left a toilet brush with poo stuck in the bristles too. I was also left a plethora of junk in the attic and coal cellar. I wish I'd asked about keys to all the outbuildings mind you the coal cellar door is only held shut by propping a brick up on the door.

Probably wouldn't have helped. I was left without keys to the window locks despite having specifcially asked...

the previous property I bought, the sellers left it in a disgusting state - they took all of the lightbulbs, and left no loo-roll, the oven had a little mountain at least 6" tall of burnt gods-know-what, they dumped a broken fridge half full of food in the back garden, and left the bedroom floors half-sanded (having of course ripped out the old carpets)

Mercifully I was not planning to move straight in.

The sellers were most indignant and left some lovely threatening messages on my answer-phone when they got the solicitors letter with the bill for cleaning up their crap.

When I moved out I left a folder with details of the good local takeaways which did deliveries, details of a couple of tradespeople I'd used, notes of the days different kinds of rubbish and recycling were collected, contact details for the paper shop and the milkman in case they wanted to set up deliveries, details of the who the gas and electricity suppliers were (I knew that was on the property information forms but thought that it might be more convenient for them to have the information to hand) and contact details for those, and a note letting them know that I had set up redirection with Royal Mail but left them a forwarding address to send things n to if anything slipped through.

I also left them a card and bottle of wine, and made sure that there was loo roll and soap in the bathroom.

I think I also left some cleaning wipes and a bottle of bleach, although that wasn't deliberate.

My sellers left nothing.. and the house wasn't any too clean when I moved in, either...

DRP

don't think i'd want to use the sellers' loo roll, to be honest.

I'd also prefer not to use their cleaning materials as well.

I made a pile in the living room of all our keys, info on the stop !!!! and meters, bottle wine and that was that...

osaddict

Thanks for all the horror stories people - that's given me some real confidence!!!

Well, I think I have my list of questions I want to ask the seller. As regards all these people leaving welcome packs and all that - wow, that's some seriously good karma! - I could be wildly wrong but don't expect that.

It's certainly something I'll keep in the back of my mind though for any potential buyers in the future - I can see how it would be very nice

lisa110rry

When we bought our home 28 years ago, it had only been lived in by the initial owners who had it built in 1932. I asked the sellers (the son and daughter-in-law of the late owner) if they possibly had any photographs of the house when it was new or newish. I would dearly love to see that, even now. Sadly, they didn't get back to me and now they, the sellers, have passed away and the corn mill (which was owned by the initial inhabitants of the home) is gone to ticky tacky housing.

Probably not high in your priorities but if the house is old, old photos can be fascinating.