Is it common for seller not to be fully moved out on completion

Hoploz

That is really horrible, they really shouldn't have kept you waiting till late in the evening, that's very poor behaviour!

Technically, the time of 'completion' does vary according to when the money goes through. Having said that, 2pm is really not that late - and they were there till 9!

However, I believe it is usual to have written in the contract of sale that the property should be vacant by a particular time, for example, 12 noon.

Either way they are in breach of contract and you could potentially claim any additional costs from them, eg accommodation overnight if they hadn't been gone. But you can only claim if you actually did incur any costs. Which probably you didn't.

This time next week you will be laughing about it, while enjoying your lovely new home

HouseBuyer77

The EA exists to first sell the property and then chase things during conveyancy to make sure it goes through and crucially work for your vendor, not for you. The contract is between you and the vendor, if they've breached the contract then it's your responsbility to chase this up, not the EA's.

Robochick

This happened to me two years ago - I arrived on the friday, and the wife was sitting on a chair in the kitchen with her baby, and loads of their stuff in boxes still there. There had been some hold up on thier side with their seller & completion, and ther husband and brother-in-law were sitting in a van packed full of stuff unable to get into thier new house as the funds hadn't beentransferred through the solicitor or something.

We just got on with it to be honest, and started moving our stuff in. Although they did leave loads of stuff behind, including two wardrobes and a goldfish who could only swim upside down.

G_M

as above, should have chased via solicitor - it's a legal issue

could have simply gone in, said "what are you doing in my house? Get out!" (though that's pretty extreme, might escalate things, and hardly helps when moving is so stressful anyway)

to correct an earlier point - Completion did NOT take place at 2.00. Completion takes place when party 1 hands over the cash AND party 2 hands over the property. In this case, party 2 was failing to Complete (though did Complete on the day stated in the contract)

sebadee

I should add, solicitors was closed by this point, it was 5.30 pm.

Davesnave

sebadee wrote: »

Oh I am !!!!ed with the vendors now, but I feel annoyed that the EA did not at least call the vendors solicitors and say 'do you know your client is still in the property'? Seems bad that they just went home and left me to deal with it.

I'm not sure what the suggested action might have achieved.

Do you think the solicitor would have whipped round to help with the packing?

Given that it was well after 5pm, would they even be answering their phone?

martindow

sebadee wrote: »

mods, please delete this thread.

I'm not sure why you have removed your OP. You seem to have had good advice and I can't see why you are upset with any of the responses which are generally sympathetic to the situation you found yourself in.

Possibly you are over-reacting a bit here as a result of the awful move you had.

The OP in quoted in post no 5. I think the mods should leave it as it is as the responses give helpful advice to others in a similar situation coming across this thread.

mattyprice4004

For god's sake, it shows how incredibly ungrateful some people are when they want a thread that could help others to be taken down.

Think of other people for once, and put the original post back.

DaftyDuck

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

For god's sake, it shows how incredibly ungrateful some people are when they want a thread that could help others to be taken down.

Think of other people for once, and put the original post back.

Well, I wouldn't want to upset god.... I've always assumed G_M stood for God'aMighty, and he's cranky enough at the best of times....

So:

So we completed yesterday on our first house and went to collect the keys from the EA at around 5pm. The EA gave us one key and said the seller would leave the others on a side board.

We drove over to the house, and i let my wife open the door to our new home while our kids got excited, however we walked in and found the seller still packing and saying how they did not complete until 2pm and needed more time to pack (we exchanged a week before, so they knew it was happening).

Not wanting to cause a scene we left and i called the EA. He then called me back, but had no advice for me, and just repeated about her not getting completion until 2pm?

I then drove the family home and returned later and they finally did the last load about 9pm at night, but still have garden stuff to collect, to be fair we were all polite to each other, and they were nice people, but I am also pretty sure they have another set of keys still, and this is legally my house now, i got a load of keys last night, but i think the wife may have a set still and plans to turn up today to get the garden stuff. I spoke with my brother in law and we suspect the EA still had the one front door key from when doing showings, which is what they gave us.

I feel !!!!ed off with the EA here, they just went home at office close and would not answer the mobile number. I am now back at our rented home a good 100 miles away and need to go to work today (i got back at 1 am after making another trip back there to check they have moved out).

Is this common? Seems not right that we had all these people involved to oversee the process and we turn up at the nominated time, to find the house is not ready to occupy. It kind of spoiled what should have been a happy day for us. I am a flexible guy, but why all this long legal procedure to just have this 'drop the keys off without even checking its been left unoccupied'?

PasturesNew

HappyMJ wrote: »

...

Thanks to HappyMJ for quoting the initial post before the OP deleted it

Many people who are selling have no idea they HAVE to be out on completion day. And some think they can start packing once they get a phone call to say they've completed.

I was selling a house the other year, not mine and I was staying there with minimal goods and clearing it in the final week before completion. Morning of completion I woke up, having dossed on the floor in the empty house and was packing my final/personal items into my car when the front door bell rang. It was the buyer - he had only JUST found out that he had to be out of the house he was selling that day too! He thought he could wait for the phone call, then get the keys to my house, then go back to his and start packing.... he was in a right 2-and-8 and asked if he could bring his stuff over and stick it in the garage before the hour of completion.

As it wasn't my house/I didn't have a van that was being loaded in the driveway etc, it was no skin off my nose, so I just said "yes" and he nearly melted with relief in front of me, before dashing off in his van to round up his mates to go empty his house!