What sellers hide!

JGB1955

I sold my father's house under Power of Attorney.  I had NEVER lived in the house.  My parents had owned it from a new barn conversion 30 + years earlier.  I guess the purchasers didn't bother with a survey...Upon completion the whole water system had been drained down and there was no way to get it working without a plumber being involved.  The kitchen door was jammed shut due to expansion of the door frame.  One (actually thinking about it - two) bedroom(s) had a wall of damp mould.  The en-suite bathroom had lost the bath plug several 'live in carers' ago. There was no hot water.  The dishwasher was a disaster. The front door was basically a sieve, with leafs turning up in the hall way daily. None of the overhead kitchen lights worked.  There was a parking issue with the neighbours.  My nephew had wrecked the door handles on the external dining room doors 10 year ago, so they couldn't be locked. and so on...  BUT, as we were told by a very close neighbour, at my father's funeral - the purchasers love the house and are now part of the community.  It doesn't always go wrong - the £80K 'loss' on the house is insignificant compared to the fact that someone is enjoying the house the same way my parents enjoyed it.  Not for me - but a definite one for someone else.... and there's been NO comeback!

GeordieGeorge

annabanana82 said:

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. 

That’s a bit strange; why not?

fiwen30

When painting our kitchen cabinets, I discovered about 50 loose razor blades on the top of the upper cupboards!

teachfast

Greymug said:

What I'm going to leave to my future sellers:


- I won't mention the fat lady living upstairs that stomps about like she's a whale wearing concrete shoes

Haha brilliant. 

in_my_wellies

My son bought a house from a very lovely elderly lady who was moving into a retirement home. We think she was 94. I went on a second viewing with him and she asked me if he had any furnishings. As he didn't she said she would leave everything she thought would be useful to start him off and that she would send her grandchildren round after one week to collect anything he didn't want. 

Although she was elderly everything was relatively up-to-date and in superb condition. The furniture was polished and every drawer clean. She had sorted and arranged cutlery, crockery, kitchen utensils, Kenwood mixer, cleaning products perfectly. The TV was less than a year old as was the leather electric reclining chair and matching settee. One of the twin beds still had plastic wrap. 

Outside there was every piece of gardening equipment needed including lawnmower, strimmer, tools and plant food etc and a pond full of big fish which my son was scared of killing before he knew how to keep them. 

She left a list of contact details for all the trades people which he found useful in a new area. 

The day after he moved in someone at work needed a room to rent for a few weeks so he was able to take in a lodger. No way he could have done that without the help of this lovely lady

There was nothing for the grandchildren to collect!

daivid

Nothing out of the ordinary really, a gas cooker on it's last legs: hobs were fine, only one oven worked, and by worked I mean could heat a dish to lukewarm or cremate. This was more than compensated for by a brand new Bosch tumble dryer.

The previous owner had done a lot of DIY and in the words of one of our elderly neighbours “everything he did was good”, the words of our electrician when he came to rewire the kitchen (as part of our remodelling) were “well this is interesting...” What I've come to realise is that the previous owner was very good at covering up his handy work. The kitchen plumbing was also ‘interesting’ though luckily interesting water pipes are less dangerous than electrics. 

lookstraightahead

in_my_wellies said:

My son bought a house from a very lovely elderly lady who was moving into a retirement home. We think she was 94. I went on a second viewing with him and she asked me if he had any furnishings. As he didn't she said she would leave everything she thought would be useful to start him off and that she would send her grandchildren round after one week to collect anything he didn't want. 

Although she was elderly everything was relatively up-to-date and in superb condition. The furniture was polished and every drawer clean. She had sorted and arranged cutlery, crockery, kitchen utensils, Kenwood mixer, cleaning products perfectly. The TV was less than a year old as was the leather electric reclining chair and matching settee. One of the twin beds still had plastic wrap. 

Outside there was every piece of gardening equipment needed including lawnmower, strimmer, tools and plant food etc and a pond full of big fish which my son was scared of killing before he knew how to keep them. 

She left a list of contact details for all the trades people which he found useful in a new area. 

The day after he moved in someone at work needed a room to rent for a few weeks so he was able to take in a lodger. No way he could have done that without the help of this lovely lady

There was nothing for the grandchildren to collect!

What a lovely gesture. 

csgohan4

olgadapolga said:

We were left:

Mirkwood (not hidden)

All sorts of junk buried in the garden including a firepit and a lawnmower, bags for life and raw meat wrappers.

A house full of junk that should have been cleared.

Please tell me there's wasn't a dog in there

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2636903/updated-its-done-our-buyer-wants-to-bury-their-dead-dog-in-our-garden/p1

olgadapolga

csgohan4 said:

olgadapolga said:

We were left:

Mirkwood (not hidden)

All sorts of junk buried in the garden including a firepit and a lawnmower, bags for life and raw meat wrappers.

A house full of junk that should have been cleared.

Please tell me there's wasn't a dog in there

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2636903/updated-its-done-our-buyer-wants-to-bury-their-dead-dog-in-our-garden/p1

We haven't found a dog yet but we haven't finished in the garden. Removing the pond was bad enough as there were seven liners, four duvets and other assorted haberdashery items underneath. When we uncovered the duvets, they were soaking wet and had roots growing over them that looked like veins. I let DH move them whilst I stood by with a garden fork!

We dare not to dig up the patio though, especially since learning that it was installed after the vendor's wife disappeared.

csgohan4

Leaking ensuite bathroom, leaking into the kitchen the day after completion, noticed the prev new paint in closer inspection to hide the coffee like stains.

Fluorescent yellow walls underneath the wallpaper

dangerously wired sockets, caused it to trip the circuits, electrician had to fix

non working washing machine and top oven

Woodlice initially, probably because of damp somewhere, but none last few years.