Buyer seeking compensation after completion.

Titus_Wadd

tooldle said:

p00hsticks said:

TripleH said:

So to sum up, if I've read correctly..

1. You moved out of your old house by the deadline you said you would do?

2. The buyer decided to move in a day earlier than was agreed?

I would hold onto the letter for now but don't respond until you hear anything else from the buyer.

The first port of call would be to review what your contract of exchange stated for when you agreed to vacate the property and check if that was what you agreed with your solicitor.

As above, ignore the fluff etc. Focus on what the contract said and work from there BUT only if you receive a letter stating they intend to take legal action.

They may send another 'frightener' letter if they hear nothing which I would again taken no action on but keep. Only take action if a letter coming from a solicitors is sent.

My interpretation is slightly different

1. The standard 'vacant possession at time of completion' applied. However, due to moving difficulties on the day, as it turns out the OP hadn't actually finished emptying the property of their possessions at the time of completion, and didn't actually fully vacate the property of their possessions until very late on the same day. 

2. Although the buyer had said that they weren't actually moving in until the following day, this wasn't a formal agreement and isn't really a justification / excuse for the OP not being able to give them the vacant possession - afte completion has taken place then it should be up to the buyer as to when and if they decide to occupy the property and they have a right to an empty property.

I have sympathy for both parties in this unfortunate situation. The buyer had gone completely over the top with their letter but I can see that it was incredibly frustrating for them(I've been in a similar situation myself where I ended up helping the sellers pack their stuff on completion day). Hopefully writing it all down like that has enabled them to vent sufficiently.

I read it the same way. Completion seems to have happened around 1pm when the sellers ‘stuff’ was still in the house. It matters not a jot when the new owner was planning to move in. They become the owner as soon as the seller receives payment. Vacant completion was not given and the seller is at fault. 

True, but quantifying a loss even without the buyer's vivid imagination would be difficult.  Anyone in a long chain will find the 1pm timeslot will have slipped by a couple of hours through no one's fault,you just get on with it.  Clearly the vendor valued their FTB virginity very highly and was expecting the earth to move!

sheramber

An hour or two maybe but not until 11pm.

tooldle

@Titus_Wadd 11pm is considerably more than an hour or two. The OP does not seem to understand ownership of the house changed when payment was received. Suggesting a neighbour takes the keys of a house they no longer own , to let in their removal team is cheeky and i can see why the actual owner was not happy and wanted to stay until the removal team had cleared the house. As before a gesture of appreciation is needed from the OP.

Section62

tooldle said:

As before a gesture of appreciation is needed from the OP.

Promising not to sue for the unlawful disposal of the OP's items of property to the local tip would seem a fair gesture, if you really insist one is needed.

It is a contractual arrangement.  The OP and the buyer are not BFF's. Some kind of gesture at the time might have been wise, but things have moved on.  If the buyer remains aggrieved they now have the right to take the appropriate action under the terms of the contract, if they wish.

Pressurising the OP to give some kind of gesture of appreciation is unfair.  It ceases to be goodwill when you are forced into doing it.

At this stage, the OP is almost certainly better off doing nothing, unless the buyer takes this further and presents them with some kind of actionable position.

kinger101

tooldle said:

p00hsticks said:

TripleH said:

So to sum up, if I've read correctly..

1. You moved out of your old house by the deadline you said you would do?

2. The buyer decided to move in a day earlier than was agreed?

I would hold onto the letter for now but don't respond until you hear anything else from the buyer.

The first port of call would be to review what your contract of exchange stated for when you agreed to vacate the property and check if that was what you agreed with your solicitor.

As above, ignore the fluff etc. Focus on what the contract said and work from there BUT only if you receive a letter stating they intend to take legal action.

They may send another 'frightener' letter if they hear nothing which I would again taken no action on but keep. Only take action if a letter coming from a solicitors is sent.

My interpretation is slightly different

1. The standard 'vacant possession at time of completion' applied. However, due to moving difficulties on the day, as it turns out the OP hadn't actually finished emptying the property of their possessions at the time of completion, and didn't actually fully vacate the property of their possessions until very late on the same day. 

2. Although the buyer had said that they weren't actually moving in until the following day, this wasn't a formal agreement and isn't really a justification / excuse for the OP not being able to give them the vacant possession - afte completion has taken place then it should be up to the buyer as to when and if they decide to occupy the property and they have a right to an empty property.

I have sympathy for both parties in this unfortunate situation. The buyer had gone completely over the top with their letter but I can see that it was incredibly frustrating for them(I've been in a similar situation myself where I ended up helping the sellers pack their stuff on completion day). Hopefully writing it all down like that has enabled them to vent sufficiently.

I read it the same way. Completion seems to have happened around 1pm when the sellers ‘stuff’ was still in the house. It matters not a jot when the new owner was planning to move in. They become the owner as soon as the seller receives payment. Vacant completion was not given and the seller is at fault. 

So they're entitled to reasonable consequential losses.  Not fantasy expenses.  Doing nothing until the buyer writes something credible is the correct response.

newsgroupmonkey_

Look, ultimately, the buyer has to prove costs.

You can't charge for labour - you have no contract to do so.

We talk about this all the time on the forum. If a completion is "frustrated" (and sorry, but 10 hours is hardly frustrated), the buyer can claim LOSSES. Not nonsense labour costs and "hurt to feelings".

To have played the game properly, the buyer should have called their solicitor, said it was a frustrated completion (The property wasn't vacant) and await further instructions. Not try and sue the OP.

EDIT to add, exactly what Kinger said above.

Skiddaw1

Absolultely. These things happen when all is said & done. When we completed on previous house (mid morning) our removal men were sat outside in the van for hours because vendors hadn't dropped the keys off at the EA's office (where we were sitting waiting for them). Hours later  (just before EA was due to close) keys finally appeared via a mate of the vendor. It transpired that Mr Vendor, who suffered from epilepsy, had been taken to A&E following a particularly bad fit (probably a result of the stress of moving house) whilst en route to the EA's office (and had obviously been unable to contact anyone until he'd sufficiently recovered). We certainly wouldn't have considered requesting compensation.

DE_612183

tooldle said:

@Titus_Wadd 11pm is considerably more than an hour or two. The OP does not seem to understand ownership of the house changed when payment was received. Suggesting a neighbour takes the keys of a house they no longer own , to let in their removal team is cheeky and i can see why the actual owner was not happy and wanted to stay until the removal team had cleared the house. As before a gesture of appreciation is needed from the OP.

Surely completion is contractually on a given day - not just the exact moment when the payment hits the bank account?

deano2099

sheramber said:

An hour or two maybe but not until 11pm.

Yup - it's not reasonable to expect them to do that. Had I been in that situation, once I'd been waiting an hour, I'd have gone "home" and told the OP to rearrange the removals for a mutually convenient time. They didn't do that, so were I the OP I would have considered how much that would have cost me and perhaps considered making a goodwill payment based on that.
But that's if I was dealing with a rational person. From this email, they're clearly not rational and the advice to ignore it is good advice.

lookstraightahead

DE_612183 said:

tooldle said:

@Titus_Wadd 11pm is considerably more than an hour or two. The OP does not seem to understand ownership of the house changed when payment was received. Suggesting a neighbour takes the keys of a house they no longer own , to let in their removal team is cheeky and i can see why the actual owner was not happy and wanted to stay until the removal team had cleared the house. As before a gesture of appreciation is needed from the OP.

Surely completion is contractually on a given day - not just the exact moment when the payment hits the bank account?

I suppose it's like everything else, when you've paid for it, it's yours.