Buyer seeking compensation after completion.

orangecrush

I keep reading it and there’s more brilliance. “…I will never get that moment back again…”. 

london21

Silence is the best reply to a fool.

Section62

DrFrankFurter said:

£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.

 

Just checking... is this second "Luton van" the removal company's second vehicle?

I.e. she wants you to pay for a skip she didn't need to dispose of the contents the removal company took in the second load?

Not that it makes any difference to the overall validity of the claim.... I'm just curious about the logic that ends up with them making the priceless claim of £30 for a skip permit which was never applied for.

Seriously though, if you want to confirm with your own solicitor that you aren't liable in any way then do that, but also make it clear you agree with them that they won't 'handle' any further correspondence on this matter which might be sent to them by the buyer's solicitor.  If the buyer wants to waste their time and money on solicitor's letters they can, just make sure you won't be paying your own solicitor to pass any of the nonsense on to you.

tooldle

For clarity then, what time did completion happen?
Is it correct that completion happened with a good deal of your possessions still inside the house?
You'd left by that stage and asked the new owner to be available to let an extra set of removal people into their property, in order to remove the rest of your possessions?
The second removal attempt took circa 4 hours, after which the new owner locked the property and left?
Is this the correct sequence of events?
If so, I'd laugh at the claim from the purchaser, but I would consider my position i.e. you did not give vacant possession on completion and the buyer was inconvenienced by having to accommodate your removal men and wait for them to leave, so as to secure their home. A small gesture would be appropriate in my opinion, given they did accommodate your request. 

Skiddaw1

I'd either ignore it or (probably) ask my solicitor to respond along the lines of 'bog off'.

I'd deffo keep the letter. You can dine out on the amusement value of that forevermore. Indeed, I'd be tempted to post a redacted version on YouTube or similar. Bet it would go viral.

Honestly, OP, don't go losing any sleep over it. The woman is trying it on big time.

MalMonroe

Hi, 

I'm so sorry that your whole family has had to go through such a traumatic experience. House buying and moving are well known for being extremely stressful, along with such things as bereavement and divorce.

In my experience of solicitors - for house-buying and selling, as well as compensation claims in the past - they simply write down what their clients tell them to. In many cases, they don't even appear to advise their clients about what is reasonable and what is not reasonable to request. 

Some solicitors' letters I've received have been full of grammatical and spelling errors and plain waffle. When you first receive a solicitor's letter it can be very scary because you inevitably think that they know what they are doing. That is not always the case.

All the things these buyers are trying to claim for are the things which many house buyers have to put up with anyway. But just using guesswork to charge anyone is really beyond the pale.

When moving house in the past, things didn't always go smoothly for my family and me but we just had to grin and bear it. Never thought of sending a bill of estimated costs to anyone - and wouldn't have been successful if we had.

I do believe that everyone has the right to ask for anything. But also the person who is being asked has the right to say 'no'. And that's what I would do here. Enough is enough. When buying a home it's usually accepted that there are going to be some things that need fixing/replacing. And it's stressful for everyone, not just the buyers. (And they had to buy flowers for the neighbours?! Mind-boggling.)

As movilogo says above, even if they try to take you to court, they won't have a leg to stand on because they have no proof of any actual wrongdoing. 

DE_612183

you could of course ask them for copies all the receipts, and quotes etc.

Still say no, but it may be worthwhile for fun.

saajan_12

Basically, sounds like you were in the wrong by completing late per the contract, and so would be liable for damages. The issue is really what ludicrous things they have come up with for damages. At best there's £2-300 of vaguely legitimate causes of action, but if they go with the other guff to a court, they'd probably be laughed out for the lot. Comments in line..

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.

£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). - If that's backed up by what their removal men charged for the extra wait time, then that sounds okay. YEP

£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). - that's creating a contract for packing services - so if nothing was said, then NOPE. 

£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. - is this what would have been disposed if the items weren't packed late at night? If so, they can't double dip and charge for the same items twice. If not, what happened to those items? If they actually suffered losses, then claim that. NOPE

£30 for the cost that would have been incurred for a council permit for the skip. - as above, probably NOPE

£10 to cover money spent on refreshments and petrol used to travel to get said refreshments. - ridiculous, that's their choice, and they'd have to feed themselves anyway. Again, unless they agreed to buy refreshments for you and you agreed to pay? NOPE

£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. - if it was broken before exchange, then that's part of the price agreed for the house. NOPE

£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. - their choice, NOPE

£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. - their choice for the house they bought. NOPE

£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. - ridiculous.. if they are charging for the work in providing you with a removals service, then that pay includes their costs! Which still is silly and they chose to do this. NOPE

£20 for cleaning supplies to clean up after the mess left from having moved the seller’s items. - what mess.. there's a very wooly expectation of cleanliness on a house sale, no judge is going to blink over £20. NOPE

£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. - did you (or your movers) leave these items behind? If they actually suffered costs to dispose, then you should reimburse that or move it on/before the compeltion date, not after. YEP

£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. - regardless of who's right and wrong, there's no compensation for 'deception' in a contracts case. NOPE

£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".- if it was so painful / exhausting, they shouldn't have helped and just charged for their damages from you breaching by a whole day. 

Re the emotional side, they have no particular right to a first time buying 'moment'. Its a contracts case.. NOPE

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. - irrelevant what happened before, you agreed to complete at a certain time/date. No benefit for your emotion either. 

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! - that's between you and the removals company, not the buyer's problem (whether or not she knows things, what is she supposed to do.. refuse?) 

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! - well to be fair, it shouldn't be up to her to ask you to take things, that should have been removed by you or people you hired unless you had an explicit agreement otherwise (can you prove she agreed to keep the pots?). While she does have to bail your items for 30 days, that doesn't have to be on site and she can charge the reasonable moving / storage / disposal costs as appropriate. 

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.  -While I am sorry you had that stress, this isn't contractually anything to do with the buyer and doesn't negate (the few valid parts of) their claim 

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

Where do we actually stand here? - mostly rubbish, as they chose to do things. If you did vacate later than agreed, then you ARE liable for the actual resulting damages, but given how much hyperbole there is, I'd probably ignore for now, maybe send a simple reply if they actually send a LBA (to show willingness ahead of court) and defend as above if there's a court claim. 

Thank you.

theoretica

I am curious about the removal people's side of the story - were new owners actually helpful getting the van loaded much faster than otherwise possible and lighting the way, or were they a general nuisance?

Gavin83

Section62 said:

Gavin83 said:

People have been highly critical of the buyer but seem to have completely glossed over your part in this. I think a bunch of flowers, an apology and maybe paying for a takeaway for their first night in their new home would have worked wonders. No, you don't have to do this but you likely would have avoided the stress of receiving this letter had you done so.

In general I could agree with the point you are making, but in a case like this I fear that the offer of paying for a takeaway wouldn't have stopped this letter being sent... but rather potentially given grounds for adding an extra claim for the cost of petrol to drive to A&E (if the ambulance hadn't taken them), following them choking on a piece of prawn cracker (etc).

Maybe. In all honesty either outcome is possible.

Although the claims listed are completely ridiculous I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the upset from the buyer given the circumstances, nor to resent that upset being directed at the OP. Ultimately the OP is the party in the wrong here. The buyer hasn't helped themselves here but then again I don't think most people on this thread slating the buyer helps either.

This thread does perfectly highlight why you shouldn't claim for stupid stuff though. Had they claimed a few hundred for the costs of the delay this thread would have had entirely different responses.