Completion day in a chain

housebuyer143

Karen_Artioli said:

eddddy said:

Karen_Artioli said:

If that’s the case, I won’t be allowed to do multiple trips with a van and would need a lorry instead in order to move all at once?

That's correct - you can't do multiple trips.


Completion day is supposed to work roughly like this:

• You usually aim to complete at 12 noon for both sale and purchase.

• So at 12 noon your old house no longer belongs to you, and at 12 noon you become the owner of the new house.

• So the goal is to get everything out of your old house before 12 noon - and leave it all sitting in a removal truck until after 12 noon.

• Then after 12 noon, you will own the new house - so you can start unloading the removal truck into the new house.

But sometimes there are delays - so maybe you won't complete until 2pm or 3pm. In that case, your belongings have to sit in the removal truck for an extra 2 or 3 hours until 2pm or 3pm, before you can start unloading.

But my solicitors didn’t give a time, as it depends on the bank it can be anything between 10am and 3pm for example - not necessarily 12pm. So I need to load the lorry first thing in the morning and keep waiting all day? Would the removal company be ok with that?

That's what people do and why you don't exchange and complete the same day if you need to move the same day.

Recently the money was received for my purchase at 3:30pm so waited and paid the mortgage for that day and didn't get the keys until gone 4pm.

Megaross

I'd endeavour to have everything out by 10 o'clock, 12 latest. It's understandable buyers would want to get in asap - they're moving for a reason. I know I cannot wait to leave my current situation.

If you have to hire a lorry or two lutons then it's just a cost you should factor in.

Just do the hard work day before - everything packed, moved downstairs for the move. Basically just a mattress to kip on and bare essentials still out.

Then it's in effect just loading the truck and running the hoover round, only takes a few hours at most. Go camp out somewhere fun and kill time til you get the call - cinema, the pub etc.

Flugelhorn

Karen_Artioli said:

Flugelhorn said:

I have been in situation where buyers were slow moving out and my removals just started moving everything in - agreeing with the vendors removers which rooms they could use. 

Vendors being slow in moving out is a real pain  - recently completion was at 1200 and money was in the bank but they didn't get their act together until nearlt 3pm - declining 2 deliveries I had arranged as they claimed not to know who we were 

. But refusing your deliveries was so mean

It was very difficult - the deliveries were a fridge and freezer, it was mid lockdown so not easy to get hold of and originally the vendor was going to sell the old ones to us but decided in the last couple of weeks not to do so 

Noneforit999

As others have said, the process is such that you are meant to have your stuff in a van or vans ready to go so once completion happens, you vacate.

Completion day is often fairly stressful if you are in a chain and have a fair amount of stuff to move, especially if you have kids to sort out etc. 

It might be worth a word with your buyers to see if you can have some flexibility, the worst they can say is no. We are currently selling and have a large garage so if the buyers asked to start loading their stuff in there that morning before completion to speed up the process, I would have no issue allowing this. 

babyblade41

The way we do it is  a week before load everything apart from absolute essentials a week before (we ask for at least a week before exchange & completion). Put in storage

On the day of completion a small van comes in & collects the last few bits early then we get the cleaners in.

Our outside animals (ducks, turkeys,Pigs ) reloaded last when completion happens.

Small van delivers essentials on day of completion to new house , storage stuff comes a couple of days later 

Megaross

Noneforit999 said:

As others have said, the process is such that you are meant to have your stuff in a van or vans ready to go so once completion happens, you vacate.

Completion day is often fairly stressful if you are in a chain and have a fair amount of stuff to move, especially if you have kids to sort out etc. 

It might be worth a word with your buyers to see if you can have some flexibility, the worst they can say is no. We are currently selling and have a large garage so if the buyers asked to start loading their stuff in there that morning before completion to speed up the process, I would have no issue allowing this. 

Surely you'd just load your stuff into the garage night before so you can load the van quick?

babyblade41

Megaross said:

Noneforit999 said:

As others have said, the process is such that you are meant to have your stuff in a van or vans ready to go so once completion happens, you vacate.

Completion day is often fairly stressful if you are in a chain and have a fair amount of stuff to move, especially if you have kids to sort out etc. 

It might be worth a word with your buyers to see if you can have some flexibility, the worst they can say is no. We are currently selling and have a large garage so if the buyers asked to start loading their stuff in there that morning before completion to speed up the process, I would have no issue allowing this. 

Surely you'd just load your stuff into the garage night before so you can load the van quick?

Some people don't have a garage & I know mine wouldn't fit in our garage & it was pretty big , plus moving twice

Domaco16

My stuff certainly won’t fit in a garage - we are planning to pack as much as possible - then place them in the back rooms (bungalow so can take them down drive) 
so if anything does happen the vendors can get to the rest of the house but I think we will be fine. 

The house we are going to is also empty so going to ask if day before we can take all our plants so that’s a good chunk done! And we don’t need access to the house to do that x 

Soot2006

My garage was full of the stuff that lives in the garage. The house was full of the stuff that lives in the house.

I own a horsebox so I moved the entire garden contents - furniture, portable shed, containers, hoses pipes and other "dirty" things into that a few days before moving, as well as all extra rubbish one collects in the garage such as winter tyres, random bench, etc ....

Removal men loaded one large truck the night before, then spent all morning loading the second, smaller truck with anything that was left. Things were fairly swift, so we received our new keys by 2pm, turned up at the new house, and the removal men were almost finished unloading having the caught the door when the prior owners departed. So I learned to just let the experts get on with their job and try to not get in the way with my stressing. We were fully moved in by 4pm.

peterhjohnson

My preferred movers were not available on completion day (which I knew well in advance) so they collected most of my stuff the day before and delivered the day after completion. On completion day itself, I moved a car-load of essentials (camp bed, etc)

My vendors had totally slow and incompetent movers and were not gone until 5pm. As the bulk of my stuff wasn't arriving until the next day, it wasn't that stressful. I think that if I ever move again, I'll try for the same arrangement - even if my movers want extra for storage - which in this case, they didn't