What sellers hide!

strawb_shortcake

I'd never considered using a second hand oven, but I suppose if it comes as part of a fitted kitchen then your options are a bit more limited. 

My Husband is desperate to move house but not so keen on all the jobs listed that need to be done before we invite an estate agent round - on the plus side as much as he's desperate to move we have 5 years before we can realistically move. 

We also have a burn mark on the kitchen worktop covered by a granite chopping board - think that one we'll just have to be upfront about.


Many years ago, we left a council flat and the only thing we couldn't get rid of was a king size mattress. I will confess that we did put it in the attic. It was a struggle, but the funniest bit (for us) was that my Dad came in and didn't even notice the mattress wedged in the attic hatch

MovingForwards

A load of naff wall art, huge mirror and other random things; all offered up on local selling sites for free. Some random items just got disposed of after trying for a while eg wall mountings for TV.

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

The shelves were taken down, leaving the walls damaged, the front door and kitchen skirting was clawed by the dog taking chunks out of it. Washing machine wass working, but has its grumpy moments and I can only use 3 of the gas rings; no warranty offered by the seller for them so I knew to expect something.
- Although disappointing, I went out and replaced the shelves. Everything was getting replaced at some point anyway.

I managed to deep clean the flat over 4 days before moving in, but not able to use the bins as the LL / previous tenant / family filled them.

There was a lot of good finds in the garden, tools and other very useful things, all of which have helped turn the plot into a place of relaxation.

You'd never think it was the same flat looking at it now compared to nearly a year ago.

Niv

I am sure my list is endless but the stuff i remember from the last house I bought (the less obvious stuff there is more haha):

- live electric cables with exposed wires 
- Kitchen falling apart
- Kitchen cupboards sinking of damp
- upon removal of said kitchen discovered mountains of rat poison behind
- chewed electric cables (much bare wire!)
- Related to above rat waste and dead bodies
- Doorway sized hole in wall in kitchen
- Spray painted, with car paint type paint, 400 year old wooden wall (still not worked out how to get it off without damaging it)
- Three ceilings falling down
- 3 inch gap between front door frame and wall so 'well ventilated'
- numerous sockets that do not work
- damaged asbestos panels around fireplace
- Missing flue for wood burner
- Aga broken
- Oven manky and door hanging off - literally couldn't use it if we wanted to
- Garden so overgrown the brambles were approx 6 foot + high over most of it
- Discovered a greenhouse after doing some cutting back (its about 4 x 2 metres!)
- Outbuilding roof falling in
- junk left in outbuilding
- junk all over garden, literally so much I had separate bags for different recycling types...
- half buried paving slabs all over the place - not even logical paths they just went nowhere
- historic fence post holes - when dug out was up to 50kg of concrete!
- leaking WC waste, when finally found and fixed it turned out to have been installed in a sloppy manner and I literally just had to tighten two jubilee clips to fix it - how long they had lived with this I have no idea!
- Loo cistern was turned off when we moved in, turned it on, flooded the dining room (received a message about an hour later from seller warning us of this...)
- no insulation in kitchen roof space so was freezing in winter


During one of the viewings owner mentioned they were downsizing and struggling to get rid of some furniture. We said they could leave some of the wooden stuff like kitchen dresser type things. What was left was wood but was a dressing table that was falling apart, heaven knows how it got into the state it was in.

Oh and then the seller asked us to find and return some garden ornaments that they could not find when moving out (sentimental), shows how overgrown the place was when the previous owner couldn't even find their stuff

The house will be lovely when I have sorted it out haha.

anteguardian

Hannimal said:

anteguardian said:

I’ve been following the thread on mums net and it’s a really good resource to know what things to keep a look out for. 

A lot of that there is no way to check for though. When I viewed my place and had the survey done, the loft space was PACKED with stuff and the surveyor couldn't fit in there so he couldn't see the condition of most of it. I now realise how incredibly lucky I am that it was all in good condition! I think in the future this would put me off buying.

I think it depends on who you are and your knowledge. There’s definitely stuff on there that you’d have to have inside knowledge of or know a bit about I admit, but there are still some points that are useful knowing for the average person. It’s definitely helped me. 

I think there are more points that I’d be happy to check because (and I have nothing against getting a surveyor as I think that’s a good call for the majority of people) I would do things myself and would’ve gone up into the loft to have a look if I was concerned about anything. 

I once viewed a house that had a wierd button next to the main bed and, being an inquisitive person, and because the agent didn’t know what it was pressed it... it set off the house alarm because it was a panic button and the agent didn’t know how to turn it off haha... whoops!
I felt bad whilst I was there but then I thought it’s your responsibility as a buyer to know what your potentially buying. 

Ramouth

This thread has just made me realise that we left a very large mirror at the house we sold a month ago. We planned to move it last to keep it safe and then forgot.  I’m a bit sad about this as it was a nice mirror.  But then we haven’t missed it so it obviously wasn’t that important to us!

Hope the new owners like it and aren’t hating us for leaving it for them to get rid of.

Arfa__

MovingForwards said:

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

On the subject of spares being left, I have been wondering if this is an acceptable thing or not. I'm planning to sell up in near future and do have a collection of spare tiles and paints that match what's been used in various rooms. Having kept them in case a tile breaks or odd bits of paint need touching up, is it acceptable to leave these for a future buyer? Would they really want them, or should I just take them to the tip now?

verytired11

Arfa__ said:

MovingForwards said:

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

On the subject of spares being left, I have been wondering if this is an acceptable thing or not. I'm planning to sell up in near future and do have a collection of spare tiles and paints that match what's been used in various rooms. Having kept them in case a tile breaks or odd bits of paint need touching up, is it acceptable to leave these for a future buyer? Would they really want them, or should I just take them to the tip now?

Why don't you offer them on the fixtures and fittings form - that way you can leave them if wanted or dispose of them otherwise.  Having a few spare tiles would be helpful.  Paint would depend on whether the buyers wanted to keep the existing colour scheme.

MovingForwards

Arfa__ said:

MovingForwards said:

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

On the subject of spares being left, I have been wondering if this is an acceptable thing or not. I'm planning to sell up in near future and do have a collection of spare tiles and paints that match what's been used in various rooms. Having kept them in case a tile breaks or odd bits of paint need touching up, is it acceptable to leave these for a future buyer? Would they really want them, or should I just take them to the tip now?

Depends, the wallpaper / varnish I was left was about 40 years old, the tiles about 20 years old and hideous.

Hannimal

Arfa__ said:

MovingForwards said:

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

On the subject of spares being left, I have been wondering if this is an acceptable thing or not. I'm planning to sell up in near future and do have a collection of spare tiles and paints that match what's been used in various rooms. Having kept them in case a tile breaks or odd bits of paint need touching up, is it acceptable to leave these for a future buyer? Would they really want them, or should I just take them to the tip now?

I'd absolutely leave them but I would also leave a note with them that says why they have been left. I wouldn't assume a first-time buyer would know that these are standard things to not throw away just in case, and they may be helpful for them. 

The paint I would ask if they need. My sellers left me with probably about 20 tins of paint, I will use precisely none of them.

These things are easy enough to dispose of, it's not like you'd be leaving a sofa.

Niv

Hannimal said:

Arfa__ said:

MovingForwards said:

Then there was the 'spares' for the flat like a few wall / floors tiles, roll of wall paper, mahogany varnish, feather duster and other bits. Which got disposed of PDQ.

On the subject of spares being left, I have been wondering if this is an acceptable thing or not. I'm planning to sell up in near future and do have a collection of spare tiles and paints that match what's been used in various rooms. Having kept them in case a tile breaks or odd bits of paint need touching up, is it acceptable to leave these for a future buyer? Would they really want them, or should I just take them to the tip now?

I'd absolutely leave them but I would also leave a note with them that says why they have been left. I wouldn't assume a first-time buyer would know that these are standard things to not throw away just in case, and they may be helpful for them. 

The paint I would ask if they need. My sellers left me with probably about 20 tins of paint, I will use precisely none of them.

These things are easy enough to dispose of, it's not like you'd be leaving a sofa.

Agreed. If these bits are being left with genuine good intentions. Being able to replace a couple of broken tiles with matched ones could be a real relief for some people as redecorating can be expensive and if you want to spruce the place up until you can afford what you 'want' to do its ideal. 

I have left such bits in the past, wouldn't even have thought about putting it on the fixtures and fittings form as I would have noticed the bits while packed way after filling that form in.