Help - buyer wants to stay on after completion??????`

paddy's_mum

This one has really intrigued me and hooked my imagination - I just have visions of fisticuffs and truncheons at twenty paces! I do hope that atrebor will come back on tomorrow and let us know what his solicitor has to say and how it is all eventually resolved.

PasturesNew

As the others have said: the agreement entered into is vacant possession - and a seller can't stay in a house, nor have their possessions in the house for one minute longer than the money hitting the bank.

Their problem should not become your problem.

Short term storage is the way they should go.


Anecdotes
As an anecdote. I was present at one house removal when the removal men stopped taking stuff out of the sold house .... only to tell the buyer "bit of a hicccup ... house they've bought is too small... house is full, front garden is full of furniture, so we're loading this van slowly as we've no idea where they're going to put this lot when we get there".

Buyer was bemused by this as they were single and had viewed the property sellers were moving to themselves and deemed it "WAY too small" yet this family of 4 and a house FULL of "stuff and things" was trying to move into it.

Anecdote 2
My sister bought a house. It had 7 sheds. For about 2 weeks after she had bought the house the old owner kept randomly turning up and taking stuff out of the sheds! No asking before or during... just would turn up as if it were still his house.

Anecdote 3
My neighbours were moving... I thought. BIG house... yet they were in the garden all day. Then I heard them take a phone call. Yes, the money was in the bank. OK to start packing now then!!!
I was gobsmacked.
Turned out they were selling to a friend, but still ..... outrageous!

wendykearney

When my parents bought their house they didn't live locally so i had to go pick up the keys, they should have been left at 1.30pm at the EA but they didn't drop them off till 5pm! That was despite numerous phone calls from soliciters and EA. I finally told them that for every 30mins they delayed after 4.30 they would be charged rent of £50 till they handed over the keys at the EA. funnily enough they turned up with keys mins later. The mouthed off at me and EA had tp threaten to get the Police to make them hand over the keys without thumping me! My Dad arrived within 3 mins of them leaving, heard what had happened and when ballastic. When we got to property they were still there loading. My dad pushed past them, locked the doors and told them that since 1.30 all property belonged to them and they were a)stealing and b) tresspassing.


After lots of appologies and grovelling my dad gave them 15mins to finish loading etc. They scarpered quickly after that. Afterwards we found out that they had been boasting that they were going to stay there overnight AT LEAST as possession was 9/10ths of the law! My dad is the most mild mannered man i know and if they had appraoached my parents for extra time they would have come to an agreement but after threatening me they had burnt their bridges.

They used to come for their post when they thought my dad wasn't in but my mum is the scarey one! She also passed on his new addy to the debt colectors that kept showing up!lol

wendy

WTF?_2

Van1971 wrote: »

I have never heard of people waiting until they have completed before they start packing. To me they just don't want to take Friday off work. Don't give in.

Furthermore, it takes a lot more than a couple of days to completely pack and move stuff out of a house if nothing has been started already. I'd guess if the OP allows them to get away with it, they'll argue on the Monday that they aren't finished moving yet and it could take days (weeks, even) more to get to the point where they will agree to move out.

The notion that no packing or removal can take place before completion is nonsense - how do they think everyone else does it?

The OP should insist on vacant possession or no completion - simple as that. If he takes possession with the original owners on site, he'd need to go to court to force them out if they wanted to play dirty. No-one in their right mind should think about putting themselves in a situation where they hand over hundreds of thousands of pounds to put themselves at the mercy of the person they just paid.

Badger_Lady

Hmmm... this is an interested read.

I can't agree with the practical application of "they and their posessions can't stay 1 minute after completion", because in a chain situation they then need to achieve completion on their purchase before they have anywhere to go. I agree that speed is the essence, but you can't expect everyone in a chain to spend the whole day in their car, with all their posessions in storage - there's an actual moving process to go through!

I seem to be thinking against the grain on OP - my only real concern would be the legal implications (particularly squatters rights), and I would expect the solicitor to advise either a) it's too risky, or b) we'll write it into the contract.

In a practical sense, this isn't going to "inconvenience" the OP as long as it's carried out as per the vendors' request, because they're not planning to move in until Saturday anyway. The only issue here is the risk of them failing to move out on the Saturday (which, as shown in the stories above, can be a risk even without prior agreement!).

Speak to the Solicitors - they will either relieve you of your burden by saying "no" (therefore no decision to be made), or they will sort things out so that it's too risky for the vendors to default on their agreement. IF it can be made legally safe (if the solicitor needs more money, vendor should cover costs), I would go along with it - a kind favour to an (almost) stranger with no cost to the OP.

Mrs7ones

On one of the occasions we moved house, we completed on the friday, but weren't planning on moving into the new house on the saturday - (rightly or wrongly) allowing the vendor the whole of the friday to get out.
We arranged to collect the keys from them on the morning of the saturdayat the house, and when we turned up there with out van full of our stuff, they were say at the kitchen table eating a big cooked breakfast, the washing machine was on and the mrs had just walked in with the ASDA shop!!!
Unbelievable :eek: :eek: :eek: .
All hell broke loose with them refusing to get out till they were ready.
In the end, we moved them out (acting like removal men) before moving ourselves in!

PasturesNew

As a seller, I'd expect to get up on removals day, with the van arriving about 10-11ish, then packing everything into it and driving to the new place by about 2ish. By which time the call will have come.

I'd expect all properties in a chain to have already exchanged, so it should be straightforward and just waiting for the money to be confirmed along the chain.

PasturesNew

It seems that there are a LOT of people who just don't know their 4rse from their elbow.

The story above with the woman with Asda shopping is unbelievable "till they were ready"!!! Where DO these people live?

Madness.

The WHOLE point of the conveyancing process is to make sure the seller is able to sell - and the buyer is getting what they expect to be buying. With EXCHANGE meaning the details are finalised (monies assured, dates set) and the whole thing hangs on VACANT POSSESSION. Which means: at the point you COMPLETE, at the time the money is your bank .... the seller should have left the property entirely.

All sane people will therefore have packed everything up ready and be getting up and waiting for the van to arrive.

In fact, legally, as somebody's dad above states: at the time the money is in the seller's bank, all belongings IN/ON the sold property belong to the buyer.

I think if I ever buy I will have to watch out for buying from nutters who don't understand the process.

Jonbvn

Given some of the above stories, I think the OP would be mad to even consider the proposal.

macaroni

atrebor wrote: »

Any advise gratefully received.....
We are due to complete on the property we are buying on Friday and we had a call from the estate agent asking if we could call the vendor.

This fact alone, that the EA didnt want to get involved in the discussion, should have immediately started the alarm bells ringing.

Hope you get it all sorted !!