Previous house owners have left many belongings

jskelce

Hi Guys,
We could really do with some help. We bought our house two months ago. On the day of completion, the previous owner rang me two hours before they were due to leave to catch their ferry to Portugal where there new home is located. He told me that they had massively over estimated how much they could fit in their vans and that they had had to leave a large amount of their belongings in the garage and work shop. He assured me that his friend, who was helping him move, would be back in three days to move these items. I took him at his word and said that was fine. I'm not talking small things either, massive pieces of industrial work equipment worth thousands of pounds, a bath, boxes of personal possessions, all sorts! Unfortunately said friend's plan to move the stuff fell through as the garage he was going to move it all to ceased to be available to him. So the upshot is he has put all the pressure on his friend to move this stuff and he is struggling to find anywhere. We have told the previous owner that he has until December 3rd to move it all out. He has tried to convince us to let them have longer by giving us a big sob story but it has been too long. We cannot finish unpacking, use our garage for what we want at all, and on top of that our whole house flooded two weeks after we moved in thanks to some dodgy plumbing (our plumber confirmed this.) They have told us it was their plumber that did this work and not him but won't tell us his name or company. So we need the space even more now to put our things from the house whilst all the ceilings and floors are fixed. We don't have much money so we don't want to have to pay out even more on solicitors to get advice, but we just need to know one thing. Does anyone with any legal clout or knowledge know where we stand legally. If we give him a deadline of the third and he doesn't collect, are we in a position to sell, keep or dispose of these items? There are many storage containers available in this area but he has chosen not to rent one and rely on his friend (who is very stressed by it all -we don't blame him) as he's holding out for a cheaper alternative, using us as free storage in the meantime. If anyone knows, any advice would be great. I've trawled the internet but can't find anyone in this kind of predicament! Thanks in advance!

Debbie_Savard

The vendor is having a laugh.

Confirm in writing that he's got 10 working days to clear the house after which time all items will be disposed of as you see fit and he'll be invoiced for the costs

Aylesbury_Duck

jskelce wrote: »

Hi Guys,
We could really do with some help. We bought our house two months ago. On the day of completion, the previous owner rang me two hours before they were due to leave to catch their ferry to Portugal where there new home is located. He told me that they had massively over estimated how much they could fit in their vans and that they had had to leave a large amount of their belongings in the garage and work shop. He assured me that his friend, who was helping him move, would be back in three days to move these items. I took him at his word and said that was fine. I'm not talking small things either, massive pieces of industrial work equipment worth thousands of pounds, a bath, boxes of personal possessions, all sorts! Unfortunately said friend's plan to move the stuff fell through as the garage he was going to move it all to ceased to be available to him. So the upshot is he has put all the pressure on his friend to move this stuff and he is struggling to find anywhere. We have told the previous owner that he has until December 3rd to move it all out. He has tried to convince us to let them have longer by giving us a big sob story but it has been too long. We cannot finish unpacking, use our garage for what we want at all, and on top of that our whole house flooded two weeks after we moved in thanks to some dodgy plumbing (our plumber confirmed this.) They have told us it was their plumber that did this work and not him but won't tell us his name or company. So we need the space even more now to put our things from the house whilst all the ceilings and floors are fixed. We don't have much money so we don't want to have to pay out even more on solicitors to get advice, but we just need to know one thing. Does anyone with any legal clout or knowledge know where we stand legally. If we give him a deadline of the third and he doesn't collect, are we in a position to sell, keep or dispose of these items? There are many storage containers available in this area but he has chosen not to rent one and rely on his friend (who is very stressed by it all -we don't blame him) as he's holding out for a cheaper alternative, using us as free storage in the meantime. If anyone knows, any advice would be great. I've trawled the internet but can't find anyone in this kind of predicament! Thanks in advance!

Blimey, I feel for you. I thought I had an odd situation when my predecessors left some *ahem* interesting toys in the loft which I discovered when I went up there to add to the insulation.

I'm sure someone will be along with the legal position but perhaps you can arrange for them to be taken by a clearance company, having given notice to the owner that you are doing so. It would then be up to him to contact the company to agree to their disposing/selling them or charging him storage. Maybe a deal can be struck where it costs you nothing, the company getting paid from the proceeds or the storage. Call a few clearance companies inviting them to collect the stuff from the 3rd December.

Norman_Castle

As an incentive to shift it start charging for storage. Make yourself more expensive than local storage.
When its moved make sure the worthless stuff is loaded before the expensive stuff.

dj1471

Most contracts of sale include a term passing ownership of the entire contents of the property to you (check), so legally you're entitled to dispose of it as you see fit.

ic

Talk to your conveyancing solicitor and take their guidance.

dj1471

ic wrote: »

Talk to your conveyancing solicitor and take their guidance.

The purchase has completed, any further work will cost money. Many solicitors charge a flat £100 to deal with straightforward post-sale issues (all they'll do is send a letter to the vendor).

Davesnave

You have no legal duty to retain or take care of the items.It's not the same as the duty of care a landlord might have.

In the interests of reasonableness, give the vendor a further week to arrange for their removal, and if they aren't gone by then, sell the better pieces and use the proceeds to pay for disposal of the rest.

You could claim against the seller fordisposal expenses, but if they are in another country, doing that might be more hassle than it's worth.

EssexExile

dj1471 wrote: »

The purchase has completed, any further work will cost money. Many solicitors charge a flat £100 to deal with straightforward post-sale issues (all they'll do is send a letter to the vendor).

In my experience they can be very helpful & not charge for simple matters like this. A phone call will find out how helpful they'll be.

d0nkeyk0ng

Make sure your locks are changed so previous owner or their friends can't access the house or garage without your permission. Other than that, how you proceed is very much down to you. I'd be tempted to offer them a week to sort it all out or you will sell it on ebay or similar.

jskelce

Thank you everyone! I so appreciate the advice. As a result we put the pressure on big time and they actually came back from Portugal to get it sorted! Even then, they tried to make US feel guilty, saying how much it had cost to come over and how hard things have been for them. On top of that, they decided they wanted to look around the garden (it's very big...green house etc) and take any gardening tools or pots of plants they may have left that they may now fancy taking back with them, since they've come all this way. You couldn't make it up! The solicitor did in fact send a letter for free (just for anyone's future reference) but it was rubbish. It simply told them they needed to remove their items by the 3rd but didn't say anything about what would happen if they didn't. That said, it's gone, they've gone and hopefully that's the end of it! Cheers guys, and Happy Christmas