Van wouldn't hold all my stuff, buyers getting angry... help!

babyblade41

I'm afraid I'm not as nice as most people on here ... I would have dumped the rest of your belongings outside of the property (I would have covered with a tarp, I'm not that horrid) & left it there.

 I then would have contacted my solicitor to tell them you have breached the contract & to inform your solicitor you had 2 days to collect before incurring charges.

Totally selfish on your part IMO & unacceptable , you had a duty to give your buyers vacant possession which hasn't happened & apologetic texts would not be suffice to appease me 

CKhalvashi

You are completely in the wrong here, when we moved we had everything out except beds, a kettle and the fridge the day before (although I appreciate we had somewhere to store, you may not), and sat for an hour ready to hand the keys to the buyer at the agent at 12pm while OH collected the keys for the new property from the purchasing agent at the same time.

You really need to call them to sort this out as you could easily find yourself liable for storage at 'short let' rates (think £100+/day) with disposal after a reasonable time (likely 28 days from you being notified), still owing that money and skip hire.

You are in breach of contract here. It is in everyone's interests to rectify that breach. Call hire companies today and get your hands on a van and take a nice bottle of wine round when you go.

diego_94

It was also your responsibility to make sure that everything was in order before moving day so that it didn't take 6 hours to load the van. If I was the vendor your stuff would be on facebook by now being sold.

Tiglet2

OP, you have my sympathy.  This happened to us on one of our moves.  The removal company didn't anticipate how much stuff we had and the lorry wasn't big enough to take everything.  The removal men and us were moving the extra bits into the garage, just to keep it in one place out of the way of the new owners, who were moving all their stuff in.  We also piled our car up with as much as possible.  The removal men were able to arrange a second smaller lorry to go to the house to pick up all the rest of the stuff at around 4 pm - all done on the same day luckily.  

Sometimes things like this do happen, but I guess the key is to try and minimise the inconvenience for the new owner as much as possible.  After all, it is not their fault that this happened.

steampowered

74jax said:

I'm not sure if I was your purchaser I'd have messaged you. 

Everything would have been done via my solicitor.  You have broken the contract and I'd instruct my solicitor immediately to take action.

Completion was Monday and your stuff is still there? Not a chance I'd be happy and you'd already have my solicitors on your solicitors back. 

lol, as if you are going to start paying your solicitor thousands of pounds to start litigation against the buyer because the seller left their lawnmover is in the garage. You might get an email or two included in your conveyancing quote but that's it. 

Lots of very snotty responses in this thread. Personally I think people need to get a grip and stop being so grumpy. Yes this is not ideal, but these sorts of thing do happen and it's not the end of the world.

Op, just get a van booked ASAP and go round as soon as you possibly can to collect the rest of your stuff. Perhaps give your buyers a bottle of wine to apologise for the inconvenience? 

lookstraightahead

Tiglet2 said:

OP, you have my sympathy.  This happened to us on one of our moves.  The removal company didn't anticipate how much stuff we had and the lorry wasn't big enough to take everything.  The removal men and us were moving the extra bits into the garage, just to keep it in one place out of the way of the new owners, who were moving all their stuff in.  We also piled our car up with as much as possible.  The removal men were able to arrange a second smaller lorry to go to the house to pick up all the rest of the stuff at around 4 pm - all done on the same day luckily.  

Sometimes things like this do happen, but I guess the key is to try and minimise the inconvenience for the new owner as much as possible.  After all, it is not their fault that this happened.

How does this actually happen? Are you saying the removal people sent the wrong lorry for what you had indicated, or were you not accurate?

We had a similar thing with a wardrobe that the removal people wouldn't take as it hadn't been taken apart (our fault). We chopped it up and put it on the tip - I would never have left it squatting in someone else's property.

Neil49

I don't think I would have wasted time composing a lengthy post on here when I could have spent the time shifting more of the items out of the house!

All you can do is apologise for what has happened and get it shifted asap. 

lookstraightahead

steampowered said:

74jax said:

I'm not sure if I was your purchaser I'd have messaged you. 

Everything would have been done via my solicitor.  You have broken the contract and I'd instruct my solicitor immediately to take action.

Completion was Monday and your stuff is still there? Not a chance I'd be happy and you'd already have my solicitors on your solicitors back. 

lol, as if you are going to start paying your solicitor thousands of pounds to start litigation against the buyer because the seller left their lawnmover is in the garage. You might get an email or two included in your conveyancing quote but that's it. 

Lots of very snotty responses in this thread. Personally I think people need to get a grip and stop being so grumpy. Yes this is not ideal, but these sorts of thing do happen and it's not the end of the world.

Op, just get a van booked ASAP and go round as soon as you possibly can to collect the rest of your stuff. Perhaps give your buyers a bottle of wine to apologise for the inconvenience? 

Or maybe pay the equivalent of how much it would cost in storage? Plus a bottle of wine?

Exodi

Along with virtually everyone in this thread, I'd be absolutely furious, especially with how nonchalantly you approach this.

Your excuses don't even come close to cutting it! The fact you've posted on this forum asking if you're the one in the wrong for being given until Friday to collect from a Monday completion is astonishing. Presumably if they only paid you some of the money on completion, with the rest maybe on Friday, maybe later - do you think you'd be as relaxed if that happened? How about if they sent you a quick sorry text to cover it and told you how they've been too busy to sort it out?

The fact it's to collect relatively meaningless stuff is the icing on the cake.. Plants? A 'good ladder'? What world are you living on OP?

TripleH

I think the issue is that the Op posted Friday about the problem that happened on Monday.

If he had posted on Monday evening then people may well be less blunt.  The new owners have had 3 days in their new home with someone else's stuff in and no timescale for when it will be gone.

What the Op should have done is give a date when he'd remove it (should have hired a van and collected Tuesday) and to let him know if that isn't convenient. The owners would be cross yes but they would have a timescale.