What are your worst or weirdest experiences from a vendor hosting the viewings?

woahsoah

Slithery said:

woahsoah said:

One guy was left alone in the kitchen, he removed the boiler cover and was "checking it". He also went looking for a ladder so he could get up into the loft.

What's wrong with that? Sounds like due diligence to me.

For a rental? They come with gas/leccy inspection certificates.

Considering it's the responsibility of the landlord to maintain the property I'm not sure what due diligence he would be doing.

Nevermind eh.

LittleMissDetermined

We once went to view a house near our town centre, it was a newly built house and we were younger then and thought walking distance to the bars would be great for our social life.

Not sure how the vendor heard us at the door as he had a wonderful vinyl player and surround system and was playing it very loud… he didn’t even offer to turn it off, proceeded to talk loudly through the viewing… it was a lovely house, and the same build we have later moved into (different location) but clearly they were trying to cover up noise from nearby roads or noisy neighbours!!

Another we went to see was absolutely rammed full of ‘stuff’ there was hardly anywhere to move and you couldn’t even see the shell you’d be buying… the kids bedroom had a custom built castle bed that took up at least 75% of the room and the mirrored wardrobes looked like they were covered in kiddy-snot. 🤢 

McTaggus

My favourite so far was an older gent who, when showing his house, pointed out the chair his wife died in 10 years earlier but then went out of his way to reassure us that he didn’t think the house was haunted as that had put other potential buyers off…

Rumana03

We went to view a flat recently and the flat itself was amazing. The vendor showed us around. Towards the end I noticed the loft access on the ceiling but it seemed to be closed with many small metal panels and screwed down. This seemed so bizarre to me so I asked why they had done that...the vendor said that their mum was afraid. This flat was a top floor flat so I asked why had something happened to cause her to feel scared, like had someone tried to break in? The vendor just replied no nothing like that has ever happened. I cannot get my head around why someone would screw shut a loft like that. There'a no way someone could break in via the roof like that...so bizarre.

Slithery

Rumana03 said:

There'a no way someone could break in via the roof like that...so bizarre.

In older terraced houses it's quite common for there to be no firewall between adjacent properties. You can go into the loft and come down into someone else's house several doors away....
This could easily be where her anxiety about the loft came from.

SuzeQStan

Our house buying/selling nightmare was down to a shady estate agency trying to force exchange contracts prior to Christmas so they would get their bonuses. 

4 of us were in the chain, and the EA would take turns telling us how one part of the chain was ‘unhappy and ready to pull out as things were going so slow’ (exchange took the standard 3 months start to finish - we all had each other’s mobile numbers so stayed in contact with each other and no one was in the slightest rush),

When that didn’t have the desired effect the EA also said how ‘the children would suffer if we didn’t exchange contracts before Christmas’ (no one in chain had dependent children and the final property in chain was vacant). 

One EA even told me my husband was demanding we move before Christmas and I was sat next to him for that conversation (barefaced lie)

The EA were desperate full on liars who would sell their grannies for a commission and nearly derailed the whole process through their lies and manipulation. 

Definitely off the Christmas card list then…

steve866

SuzeQStan said:

Our house buying/selling nightmare was down to a shady estate agency trying to force exchange contracts prior to Christmas so they would get their bonuses. 

4 of us were in the chain, and the EA would take turns telling us how one part of the chain was ‘unhappy and ready to pull out as things were going so slow’ (exchange took the standard 3 months start to finish - we all had each other’s mobile numbers so stayed in contact with each other and no one was in the slightest rush),

When that didn’t have the desired effect the EA also said how ‘the children would suffer if we didn’t exchange contracts before Christmas’ (no one in chain had dependent children and the final property in chain was vacant). 

One EA even told me my husband was demanding we move before Christmas and I was sat next to him for that conversation (barefaced lie)

The EA were desperate full on liars who would sell their grannies for a commission and nearly derailed the whole process through their lies and manipulation. 

Definitely off the Christmas card list then…

when did you exchange?

Rumana03

Slithery said:

Rumana03 said:

There'a no way someone could break in via the roof like that...so bizarre.

In older terraced houses it's quite common for there to be no firewall between adjacent properties. You can go into the loft and come down into someone else's house several doors away....
This could easily be where her anxiety about the loft came from.

But it was a flat that we had viewed so that's why I found the whole thing strange. The flat was on the top floor (5th floor).

SuzeQStan

@steve866 - we exchanged 3 weeks past Christmas exactly 3 months to the day the whole process began. 

Over three years ago now it is still a sore point with me though.

Sunsaru

Many moons ago I went with an ex to view a house. The vendor was a lovely woman but seemed like life wasn't going too well because the house was in such a poor state. The living room had that blue carpet they had at school... with holes where it had worn through!! Then we walked into the kitchen and noticed that above a grimy stained worktop there was a hole in the ceiling and you could see the floorboards above.
The coffin was truly nailed by that point but out of courtesy (and morbid curiosity) we thought we'd complete the viewing and look upstairs...... which turned out to be no better. The bit I'll never forget is walking into the bathroom, walking up to the toilet and looking down through the floorboards straight onto the kitchen worktop below....