Urgent advice on 'possession'

ANGLICANPAT

One of my family is selling their property . The exchange and complete date (same day) is due at the end of the month. Buyers will have no-where to live the last few days because of previous delays. There is always a chance too the exchange wont happen or could be delayed of course .

Question is - Buyers requesting to put their furniture in the property ahead of that date, whilst they stay with friends . Sellers are happy to oblige, unless this in some way endangers themselves legally ie gives some sort of possession rights or makes them responsible for that furniture etc. Please can anyone advise the pitfalls of this , or a way round it to make it safe for the seller to do, to help out the young couple?

Pixie5740

Give the young couple the name of a storage company.

PasturesNew

Don't do it. They will be liable - and who is going to do the inventory? What happens if something DOES happen to it? What happens if the buyers pull out then want it to stay there for another 1-2 months?

Self storage isn't that expensive... I'd direct them to that and say that their solicitor has advised against it.

da_rule

It should not create any sort of possession issues. You can get them to sign a contract setting out that:

1) Items are being stored only and the sellers take no responsibility for it
2) The storing of the items does not commit the seller to sale the property to the buyer
3) The buyers can come and collect their items with X amount of notice

They could potentially charge a fee if they wanted.

They would need to check where they stand with their contents insurance in relation to storing items that don't belong to them. There could also be problems if the items have enough value to push the overall contents value above the insured amount. I know it's really only a few days, but better to be safe and have everything covered.

ANGLICANPAT

That was my first reaction too Pixie ,but the buyers have their reasons for wanting to do what they can to make it easier for the young couple ,so they just want to see if theres a way to do it without any risk to themselves.

The property is empty , so theres no contents insurance in place, only building . I wonder if a similar sort of thing to da-rules suggestion would work but they accompanied the couple with their furniture , so no key given, and took a written contract stating all that da - rules said, plus instead of a fee, an amount of money equal to what removing and disposing of the furniture would cost , stated to be held for doing just that if it was not removed in however many days, should a sale fail?

AnotherJoe

What a load of hassle to avoid a few quid in storage fees.

ANGLICANPAT

Agreed, it does soud it , but more to it than the money Joe , they are just trying to do the best they can for someone under some difficult circumstances , if there was a perfectly 'safe' way.

Mickygg

I asked to do this on my current house. I was told absolutely not by both my solicitor and the vendors solicitor. I understood completely as what if something happened, such as a theft, a fire etc it would be finger pointing and simply not worthy of consideration, and then on top an insurance nightmare as well.

Cakeguts

If for some reason the sale doesn't complete the furniture will have to be collected from the house and put into storage or taken to a rented property. You can't really predict what could go wrong but something could. Until they money is paid for the house the buyers shouldn't put anything into it.

ANGLICANPAT

Im going to show them all these messages, the answer is clear. Im sure they will do the sensible thing. Thanks everyone .