Filling holes when moving out

fawnyb

We have sold our house and are moving out next week.
Now we have taken all pictures, mirrors, shelves, blinds and curtains down there are a lot of holes from the screws and rawl plugs.
My question is do I legally have to fill them all in?
Our buyer has been an :mad: the whole way through the sale and we really don't want to do him any favours if we have to. But we also know he's the type to complain if we don't and we don't want to have to pay out for him to get them filled. He is definitely the type to try to get more out of us.
In our contract the only thing it says is the following...
If the seller removes any fixtures, fittings or contents, the seller should be reasonably careful to ensure that any damage caused is minimised.
We haven't damaged anywhere. There are just quite a few holes.
I have contacted my conveyances to ask but they have been pretty useless the whole way through and I don't always trust everything they tell me as they change their minds depending on who or when I speak to them.
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks

HappyMJ

You're supposed to leave all the screws and rawl plugs in place.

If you remove them yes fill them in but you don't have to repaint.

I wouldn't worry about it.

Daerve

Fill them but make the finish horrific.

slowpoke_rodriguez

If it worries you get a £3 tub of polyfilla and spend half an hour filling the holes. rub the excess off with your thumb. No need to be a perfectionist.

fawnyb

I'm not worried about leaving the holes I am just worried there will be come back if I don't fill them and I don't know what I legally need to do. Some of the holes still have the rawl plugs in. Do I need to fill those?

Daerve

fawnyb wrote: »

I'm not worried about leaving the holes I am just worried there will be come back if I don't fill them and I don't know what I legally need to do. Some of the holes still have the rawl plugs in. Do I need to fill those?

Just fill them badly, it gives you peace of mind legally and means your pain in the rear buyer will have to sand 50 badly filled holes down.

discat11

I'd just do as slowpoke suggests, poke the rawlplugs in and a blob of filler in each hole.

What could the buyer possibly do after getting the keys anyway?
It's not as if he has any cooling off period!

I'm guessing all a buyer can do is take you to a small claims for breach of contract, but to do that they'd have to prove you intended to break the contract by your actions/inactions which it certainly doesn't sound like you intend to.

LittleMax

If it were me, I'd leave the holes and if they tried to get me to pay to have them filled I'd say see you in court!

PasturesNew

Why did you take the shelves? That's so annoying....
And curtains/poles/blinds....poor people will be moving into a house they can't "secure" as their lives will be on display until they can get that sorted (which might mean finding/waiting for a handyman).

fawnyb

PasturesNew wrote: »

Why did you take the shelves? That's so annoying....
And curtains/poles/blinds....poor people will be moving into a house they can't "secure" as their lives will be on display until they can get that sorted (which might mean finding/waiting for a handyman).

Because we want the shelves in our new house. We also did not say we would be leaving them in the fixtures and fittings list and he did not question this.

We may have the left the other things but due to him being very very difficult throughout the process and making a new demand each week we really don't feel like leaving him anything.

May be petty and sound wrong but unfortunately he has driven us to feel like this.

Daerve

PasturesNew wrote: »

Why did you take the shelves? That's so annoying....
And curtains/poles/blinds....poor people will be moving into a house they can't "secure" as their lives will be on display until they can get that sorted (which might mean finding/waiting for a handyman).

On the flip side our sellers are taking almost everything which is great as it saves me putting up with fittings I don't like then removing them.