Advice Needed: Parents being abused and charged for leaving behind furniture in a move.

dazron

Teapot55 said:

Was the list of items to be left behind agreed in writing?

yes through the solicitor. There were some bin bags left behind because they were hurried out. The things that were skipped were from the garden and were things like a verdanda. 

p00hsticks

Chilli6 said:

They sound like horrible people who had no idea of the process (many people can't move in until the end of the day as obviously the original owner spends the day removing their belongings.)

As an aside, I don't believe the original owner really should spend the whole day removing their belongings - you should be aiming to be out by early afternoon at the latest - but from the sound of it that's not what happened here, as the buyers turned up at midday before completion had happened.

In the circumstances I think I'd be replying to stress that everything would have been removed by the time completion occurred, but that the buyers did not give the sellers the opportunity to do so due to their early arrival and not being prepared to wait, which resulted in some stuff being left.

dazron

DoaM said:

Mojisola said:

MalMonroe said:

If I were your parents I would ask my solicitor to reply to say that they are pensioners and simply cannot afford any extra costs, as it would cause them great hardship.

That makes it sound as if the OP's parents accept that they should be paying this money!

Absolutely correct. Whilst I agree that a response should be returned, it should be more in the form of the response in Arkell vs Pressdram.

What does that mean?

AdrianC

dazron said:

Hello. Hope someone here can help us. My elderly mum and dad just sold their 3 bedroom house to downsize to a bungalow. They are mid 70's. During the move they had conversations with the buyer about what to leave. They agreed that they would leave behind wardrobes and some other bits, but they buyers said they didnt want the beds so they took those away.

On the day of the move, the buyers turned up at midday, where they found the removal people moving my mum and dad still at work. My parents hadn't received the email from the solicitor until 12:30 that the money had been exchanged - they were still loading and cleaning. When the buyers turned up the mother of the buyer started shouting and swearing at them saying that there was too much !!!!!! in the house and it wasn't clean. She made my Mum cry. They also shouted that they should have been gone, but as far as my mum and dad were concerned they were waiting for the go-ahead from the solicitors.

While the manner of their approach to the situation was clearly not on, they were in the right as far as the basic situation goes.

The vendor does not wait for go-ahead to leave.
They get out as quickly as they can, in order to allow the completion to go ahead.
Indeed, completion should not go ahead UNTIL the vendor has assured their solicitor that they're cleared and out - because, at the moment of completion, it is no longer their house. It should already be empty and clean at that point, ready and waiting for the new owners to walk in.

If packing, removing, and cleaning was going to take more than a fairly nominal amount of time, it should have been done before the day of completion.

This morning they got an email from their solicitor charging them £192 to hire a skip to remove the rubbish left in the house. As far as I can tell there were a couple of black bin bags that they didnt get to take away because they were hassled out of the property. Because they still have friends who are neighbours watched what they put it in and it was mostly things from the garden that they dismantled like an archway and concrete garden ornaments.

Anything left that was not fixtures and fittings, and not pre-agreed via the property information form, should not be left.

The basic rule of thumb as to what's a fixture is if you could pick the property up, turn it upside down and shake it, what would remain attached?

Yes, they are within their rights to ask for recompense for disposing of stuff that has been left behind that should not have been.

Was a skip necessary? We have no idea, because we don't know what there was. Nor do you.

You think there was a couple of bin bags. But then you go on to mention concrete garden "ornaments"... Were they listed as being left on the PIF?

The vendor and buyer had clearly had discussions about what was, and what was not, expected to remain... yet there was clearly plenty of stuff remaining that was not listed as remaining. So, yes, on balance I'd say that quite probably a skip would be justified, especially given the logistical difficulties of tip visits in many areas due to covid.

Can anyone advise me as to the legality of the situation. I want to go round there and tell them to sling their hook, but I would like to know where we actually stand!

Many thanks in advance...
Here is the copy from the email:

"Good afternoon,

Our clients have forwarded us the attached invoice for a skip which they required upon completion due to the amount of rubbish left behind at the property by your clients. They have asked if out of good will, the Sellers will agree to reimburse them for the costs of the skip totalling at £192.00.

We look forward to hearing from you once you have liaised with your client.

Many thanks and kind regards"

So they're saying "please, out of goodwill". Solicitors don't do that if they think there's a cat in hell's of being able to force payment...

Given their attitude when they arrived at the property, my goodwill would be strained.

When we moved here, we arrived several hours after completion to find two removal trucks and a rentavan in the drive, and a LOT of stuff still being packed.
Did we go in all guns blazing? We did not. These things happen... Some vendors are simply ill-prepared. We also had the advantage that the bulk of our own stuff was not arriving that day.

Well gone 6pm, the vendor finally left in the rentavan, chock-full. Including the contents of a built-in cupboard that he'd completely forgotten about until we reminded him. Fortunately, there was a skip in the drive, nearly full from the stuff he'd binned whilst packing... It took us nearly a month to get the skip company to collect the damn thing, by which stage it was VERY overfull from the other stuff he'd left behind.

The punchline? It had been unoccupied for six years and on the market for two, following his parents' deaths - yet he left it until the VERY last minute.

But it gets better... We then found, amongst old paperwork which had been left, a letter from them to their solicitor requesting the people THEY bought it off pay for a skip, because of the stuff they'd left...

penners324

Send a bill back for £300 for cost of items that they weren't allowed to remove from the home due to the buyer arriving early on the completion date.
List the garden ornaments and 2 mugs...

Flugelhorn

dazron said:

DoaM said:

Mojisola said:

MalMonroe said:

If I were your parents I would ask my solicitor to reply to say that they are pensioners and simply cannot afford any extra costs, as it would cause them great hardship.

That makes it sound as if the OP's parents accept that they should be paying this money!

Absolutely correct. Whilst I agree that a response should be returned, it should be more in the form of the response in Arkell vs Pressdram.

What does that mean?

Google it - useful bit of legal advice in these sort of cases https://lettersofnote.com/2013/08/07/arkell-v-pressdram/

Flugelhorn

On several occasions I have had to wait outside the property while those moving out are still packing - from the look on the faces of the removals men this is the sort of thing that happens all the time. Last time the vendor was packing a triple move (stuff to local flat / stuff to storage / stuff to property abroad) and insisted on thoroughly cleaning everything (which ultimately we were grateful for . It is just one of those things that happens when you move house

AdrianC

penners324 said:

Send a bill back for £300 for cost of items that they weren't allowed to remove from the home due to the buyer arriving early on the completion date.

Except the buyer didn't... They arrived to THEIR HOUSE, post-completion.

It's just that the vendor didn't know what time of day completion was going to be, and wasn't looking at their email.

Jeepers_Creepers

When we bought our current house, the solicitor wouldn't release the keys (the owners had already moved out) until our funds had cleared, and this wasn't until mid-afternoon since the buyer of our house was dragging their feet for some reason. I had by then unloaded the contents of the hired van - driven overnight - on to the garden, and fortunately it didn't rain.

Anyhoo, I think the OP's parents should reply to hopefully bring this to an end, and certainly not leave themselves open to further action due to inaction. Just be totally honest; they had not received confirmation that the funds had been paid until midday, so were not certain that 'completion' had fully occurred until then. They had absolutely agreed with the buyer which items would be left, and the sole addition to this list was 2 bin-bags (doesn't matter if it was more than this - no-one can prove it) of garden ornaments which they left only because of the verbal abuse that was directed at them by the buyer which distressed the couple, reducing Mrs X to tears. They would be willing to collect these 2 bags now if requested, but in no way do these constitute a 'skip load'. They apologise for any inconvenience that may have been caused to the buyers, but they believe they were acting correctly throughout and certainly did not deserve the expletives and unpleasantness directed at them at what was already a stressful time. To rub home this point, I think the OP's parents should quote some of the choicest terms used by the buyer; the buyer should hopefully be embarrassed to read them now, along with the awareness that their solicitor has also done so.

Should the buyer attempt to take this further, the contents of this letter would demonstrate to the adjudicator the OP's parents' reasonableness and willingness, from the very beginning, to put right their very minor lapse, whilst also exposing the buyers as being 'oles.   

dazron

Thanks. Good Advice.
This is what my dad replied:
"Thank you for forwarding this to us I am amazed the buyers have the temerity to ask for reimbursement of skip costs especially considering the furniture and useful equipment we left in the house and garage totally free of charge as to the agreement we came to as to what we would leave behind.

We did indeed leave some bin bags of rubbish which we fully intended to take to the tip but after the way my wife was sworn and shouted at and told you shouldn’t be here get out when she was hoovering and tidying up as a gesture of  “Goodwill “ we decided to do just that and not return. 

The rubbish we left could have been thrown in the back of a car and taken to the tip it certainly did not justify the use of a skip. 

Given that this is a request to pay as gesture of “goodwill” as you can imagine given our given our treatment by the buyer and his family there is no “goodwill “ on our part. 

We would request that you pass this message on and ask that they cease to communicate with us or yourselves 
Many thanks Paul"

I thought he did well for an old fella