Buyer seeking compensation after completion.

DrFrankFurter

Please can anyone offer any advice. We have received the following from our buyers solicitor after completion and wish to know where we stand;

"I wish to seek compensation for the sum of £2000 please, as broken down below.

£200 due to wasted time spent waiting for keys and removal men to arrive between 13:00 and 23:00 on Friday 7th. (10 hours x 2 people x £10 per hour).

£180 for my father and I for the time spent packing and moving the seller’s items and time taken to get home from 23:00 on Friday 7th to 03:00 Friday 8th (4 hours x £15 per hour due to hard manual labour X 1.5 for unsocial hours x 2 people).

£535 for what a skip would have cost to dispose of the seller’s items. This is for a skip matching capacity of the Luton van filled on the second trip. 

£30 for the cost that would have been incurred for a council permit for the skip.

£10 to cover money spent on refreshments and petrol used to travel to get said refreshments.

£30 for the purchase of parts and repair of the bathroom light switch and replacement of bulb on landing which would have left us moving furniture unsafely in the dark.

£20 for flowers gifted to neighbour at number 11 to smooth things over for the inconvenience of all the overnight noise getting us off to a bad start. 

£15 to cover battery costs for illuminating the rear alley (which has no lighting) with a torch so that items could be transported to the van from the house without injury. 

£10 to cover laundry costs of cleaning dirty clothes as we were not expecting to have to help out and our clothes were left dusty and dirty.

£20 for cleaning supplies to clean up after the mess left from having moved the seller’s items.

£100 to cover cost of labour and fuel as we are still doing trips to landfill for garden items left behind by the movers. Rubbish left behind to include dog faeces hung on the fence which was insulting.

£200 for deception as I graciously but reluctantly agreed to movers at 19:00 but the seller betrayed that trust as movers advised the ferry from Isle of Wight was always leaving at 19:30. Also for the deception that I was advised by the seller that the wrong van was sent when the removal company told me he ordered the wrong sized van and refused a visit and quote to ensure the correct sized van. 

£650 good will gesture for exhaustion, stress, ongoing fatigue, knee and back issues for me and my family. My Father had to be up again for work at 5:45 not even 3 hours later. I had 4 hours sleep before being up ready for my own removals. My Mother had to back fill my Father’s family responsibilities of caring for elderly and unwell family members in the time my father spent with me which also caused her  immense stress. I lost time to prepare for my own removal which pushed all of my plans back and caused me significant inconvenience and emotional distress. Additionally, this is for having ruined what should have been a joyous time for me and my family and tainting the memory of me buying my first home alone with such an appalling experience. This gesture will help to adjust for the fact that I will never get that moment back again and the deep upset and distress that it has caused me having saved up for so long and worked so hard for that moment".

Our side of the story;

We were nothing but lovely with our buyer. We accepted her reduced offer when the mortgage company wouldn't loan her the amount needed, despite being offered a cash buyer amount for much more. We let her visit multiple times to show family, take measurements, do multiple surveys. 

We were moving from Worcester to the Isle of Wight after almost 15 beloved years in our house. We only sold due to having to pay off debts and our autistic son wanting to leave Worcester due to ptsd from school and severe anxiety. This was a very emotional move for us. We asked for a van that would fit 3 bedrooms worth of items and that is what we were promised. We didn't refuse the removal firm a visit, we simply asked them for the biggest van that would fit 3 bedrooms. It transpired the removal firm don't have a van bigger than they sent us! On the day to our absolute dismay we saw a much smaller van arrive. We knew instantly that all our items wouldn't fit so had to urgently fix this. The removals promised another van would be over that day and there was no deception on time, the removal firm told us that the van would arrive in Worcester around 7pm. We were told after this fiasco that the firm often don't send big enough vans so we feel we were scammed as they proceeded to charge more than double original cost. Baring in mind there's a ferry crossing involved that only goes every hour we did our absolute best to rectify this situation and she knows that!

We did not ask our buyer to do anything, simply let the removals in so that they could collect the rest of our items which they promised to due. We even suggested the elderly neighbour at no. 11 (who has become a great friend to us over the years) let the removals in so she didn't even have to be there but she wouldn't allow it as she didn't trust her. None of her items were in our house at this moment and she's in her 80's and barely mobile so not sure what she thought our lovely neighbour would do. The buyer was not asked to pack. She was not asked to do anything. There was nothing left in the garden to skip, she had already agreed verbally she would keep some pots and flowers. She only had to ask if she wanted them gone and we would have sent our local van driver that we often used for deliveries to fetch and skip them with no cost to her. She was not asked to do a thing! 

We are disgusted that she is doing this to us. We were virtually on the phone crying to her that day due to the stress we were under. She wasn't even moving in until the day after and we were gone in time. The estate agency told us the buyer was moving in on Saturday so we needed to be gone by Friday, which we were.This was supposed to be a new start for our autistic son and seeing his mum so stressed (she suffers chronically with anxiety) has upset him no end. 

P.S the light switch in the bathroom had been broken for months.

Where do we actually stand here? 

Thank you.

 

user1977

If it's from your buyer's solicitor then presumably it's come via your solicitor - haven't they offered you any advice? That is kinda their job...

Most of it sounds like nonsense anyway.

marcia_

 Id tell them to do one, especially for deception, exhaustion and fatigue 🙄 these things cant be evidenced. 

 let them take you to Court if they believe they have the evidence to back up what they claim. 

Momanns

As above. Absolute chancers. Submit a counter claim for the stress caused by their outrageous demands.

DullGreyGuy

When was your stated completion time/date in your contract of sale? When were all your items actually removed from the property? Did you leave anything behind which the buyer had to dispose of?

Even if you did breach the contract by not having all your items out of the property in time the vast majority of their heads of claim can be written off... you cannot claim for your labour and then also ask for a goodwill guesture for having to do manual labour. There are also several points about what something would have cost? They can only claim for actual losses not theoretical ones. If they choose to give goodwill to others they cannot pass that on to you.

In the first instance discuss with your solicitor. Depending on your basis of instruction they may well deal with it or at least given advice on a response. 

orangecrush

She has to be joking… right??? Laundry costs? Batteries?! 

It’s not totally clear what happened. It sounds like you completed, but the removals van wasn’t big enough so they had to get another one and they caused a delay? And in the interim the buyer had the keys? So she had to let the removals people in after you had departed with the first van? 

jimbog

DrFrankFurter said:

Please can anyone offer any advice. We have received the following from our buyers solicitor after completion and wish to know where we stand;

"I wish to seek compensation for the sum of £2000 please, as broken down below.

 

You reply with: 

I wish to seek compensation for the sum of £2000 please, as broken down below:

£3000 for reading your request (time that I will never get back gain)
Less £1000 for the entertainment value it gave me and the forum members I shared it with

Leaving £2000

jimbog

I love the bit where they're claiming for what something 'would have cost' if they had paid it 

[Deleted User]

I will try to be completely fair here, as obviously there are two sides to every story. You sound like a very reasonable person who has gone through a difficult time and a difficult move.  

Your buyer, while obviously having a lot to deal with herself, seems to be blaming everything on you, right down to the refreshments and travel costs to purchase said refreshments. Given she is aware of how much you tried to accommodate, and how difficult this all was for you, her demands seem excessive and unreasonable. Unfortunately, some people are unreasonable.

I can’t comment on where you stand from a legal perspective, presumably your solicitor could advise but I’m assuming you have absolutely no obligation to abide by any of these requests. I can’t imagine she would take this any further, given it could incur legal fees and she doesn’t really have a case. You had a difficult move, but it was out of your control and you too suffered. She has had a difficult time, it has not been the fairy tale move she’d hoped for, and she (literally) wants you to pay for that. However, no one can guarantee buying your first home is a barrel of laughs. I have just lost out on a home an offer was accepted on for the second time this year. Yes, I'm angry, want to blame the sellers and my faith in humanity is pretty low at the moment, yet I’m not claiming compensation from anyone.

In sum, your buyer hasn’t had a great time of it, but you have tried to accommodate to the best of your ability. It is not your responsibility to compensate for her disappointment. Also, is a demand for a good will gesture really a good will gesture?! Wishing you and your family the very best in your new home.

movilogo

Just ignore it. The solicitors responsibility end after completion. So unless the buyer has retained their solicitors they are taking chances. Your solicitor won't entertain them as completion already happened and contract between you (seller) and your solicitor has ended. If they really want to extract money out of they should take you to court but they won't do because such rubbish won't survive in court. So ignore and relax. 

MEM62

The claim is a joke.  You cannot ask for compensation for what something should have cost.  I would reject it out of hand.