What level of “making good” for the new owners when you move out?

plumduff

Leave the house nice and clean. Thats all I would expect. And all rooms empty. Great to write where stop taps are, gas and electric suppliers, bin day and window cleaners number, but I wouldnt expect more. Wine would be a waste of money for me, I hate the stuff and don't drink very often anyway. 

whitling2k

Our house was left in a dangerous condition, with lies, lies and more lies about everything from costs, condition, maintenance, even a carefully hidden (and failed DIY-treated) woodworm infestation.  According to our solicitors, it's a buyer-beware contract.  If we wanted anything properly verifying, we should have commissioned an independent investigation & completely satisfy ourselves.  But we weren't told that!  Lesson learnt.

Luckily, we were planning to do some renovations anyway, and I'm pretty good with DIY - it just meant instead of spending our time and money making it a nice home, we had to tackle the dangerous things first, then the broken things, before worrying about making it look nice (and we're almost here now).

That was 8 years ago, and in the 8 years that we have lived here, not a single other house with the space, garden, price or location has been on the market - so short of negotiating a discount, we would have ended up in a same position anyway.  

Anyway, back on topic!  But it was left fairly clean!  Well the easy to get to bits were...

But it was apparent that they had cleaned the entire house with handy wipes, as a few days after moving in, the drains started leaking raw sewage into the garden.

When I lifted manhole cover, I found a 3 foot long extrusion of their poo, handy wipes and various other non-flushables!  

rachelbarker

Two points;-
1. Leave the property as you would wish to find it if you were moving in.
2. Personal pride - I would be ashamed if I thought my purchasers thought I was a slob.
Moving is a huge financial and emotional investment. We should all try to make it as pleasant an experience as possible.

annielyn

We've always left homes how we'd like to find them. Cleaned and hoovered etc and have left welcome packs with local information for the buyers. I wouldn't be too bothered about doing much more than that though as the first thing we've done on moving in anywhere is clean and then decorate to put our own stamp on the place. When selling my mum's 60 year old Semi I found myself doing the same there even through I knew everything was going to ripped out as soon as the buyers got the keys! 

HilsR

We moved last November and left our previous property clean and tidy, I even had the oven professionally cleaned.  When we got to the new house we were confronted with a serious leak under the kitchen sink, carpets that smelt very badly of dog, and an oven that was so disgusting we had to throw it out and buy a new one as soon as we got there.  None of this was apparent when we viewed the property on many occasions.  So as they say "caveat emptor".

robatwork

This question keeps cropping up in this forum recently - just scroll back through or do a search for "cleaning". 

I think if you're the sort of person who posts on this forum, you're unlikely to be the sort of scumbag who leaves their home like a tip.  

I leave properties I'm moving from in "very clean" condition. Not professionally because the new occupants may well either do that themselves or rip up carpet. That's what I do when I move in somewhere.

BecsMags

We moved last week, place was flithy, not sure it had been cleaned properly in years. They were heavy smokers, we gutted everything the day we got the keys. Thick yellow stains on walls and ceilings, sticky surfaces, yellow stains around windows, moldy curtains, carpet in bathroom smelt of urine. I haven't even started on the cooker, we're considering buying a new one, as at the moment I cannot imagine cooking with the one left behind. Thankfully we have a month overlap, so not living there yet. 

We did of course notice a nicotine smell when we viewed the property, but also knew we'd gut carperts and get new windows, so all fixable. Just didn't realise the level of cleaning that would be needed overall - overwhelming. 

beardiedog

whitling2k said:

Our house was left in a dangerous condition, with lies, lies and more lies about everything from costs, condition, maintenance, even a carefully hidden (and failed DIY-treated) woodworm infestation.  According to our solicitors, it's a buyer-beware contract.  If we wanted anything properly verifying, we should have commissioned an independent investigation & completely satisfy ourselves.  But we weren't told that!  Lesson learnt.

Luckily, we were planning to do some renovations anyway, and I'm pretty good with DIY - it just meant instead of spending our time and money making it a nice home, we had to tackle the dangerous things first, then the broken things, before worrying about making it look nice (and we're almost here now).

That was 8 years ago, and in the 8 years that we have lived here, not a single other house with the space, garden, price or location has been on the market - so short of negotiating a discount, we would have ended up in a same position anyway.  

Anyway, back on topic!  But it was left fairly clean!  Well the easy to get to bits were...

But it was apparent that they had cleaned the entire house with handy wipes, as a few days after moving in, the drains started leaking raw sewage into the garden.

When I lifted manhole cover, I found a 3 foot long extrusion of their poo, handy wipes and various other non-flushables!  

Surveyors cover their backs very well, they only advise and indicate potential problems. Gas and electric are always given a red grade 3 warning unless current certificates are available. It's always prudent to get these checked out ASAP after moving in. Mine didn't enter the loft because the previous owner had painted it shut and he didn't want to ruin the decor and missed the dangerous state of the flue.

Ugh!! sounds disgusting, I guess there were possibly women's products in there as well?

We moved in a month ago and busy cleaning and repairing bodged DIY and discovering other undisclosed problems.

UnderOffer

1. Leave the property as you would wish to find it if you were moving in. 

Definitely- I loved our old home so wanted to leave it immaculate, we even painted a large kitchen wall the morning of move as when I removed the mirror it had marked and left a 1metre square shape on wall 😬, we filled all holes and hoovered behind a large triple wardrobe that I’d left for free by agreement for the new owners. 

2. Personal pride - I would be ashamed if I thought my purchasers thought I was a slob.
Yes, us too, made even more difficult that we moved a few doors away so do bump into our buyers! 

nataliem262

I sold my house and it had had a tenant in it so it was empty when sold so we fully repainted every room, sanded and revarnished the wooden floors, repainted the kitchen units, powerwashed every single piece of paving, chimney, roofs and walls outside, cut all grass and washed everywhere inside fully in the week of sale. It was like a brand new house basically inside and out.
I got a letter from their solicitor a few weeks later moaning about the window locks on 2 windows and 1 internal door handle not being fully operational, and needing to install new sensors on the house alarm because there weren't enough and a call-out fee to reset the alarm code. I was less than impressed but agreed to pay call-out just to get it closed.  Imagine how I feel now that - even though this was paid - they are now taking me to the small claims court for the above "issues".  Absolute *!?****???s.