Garden state at the point of completion

daivid

Buying an unoccupied house I'd expect any garden maintenance to be at a bare minimum, and indeed that is what I had buying my house: hedges and grass overgrown. The only disappointment was that between viewing and completion the plum tree had suffered storm damage that it took 2 years to recover from, do I blame the vendors? Not at all, sure they could have come round and picked the plums to reduce the risk but I wouldn’t expect it.

fackers_2

kazzystar1973 said:

We are selling my father’s house who sadly passed away last year. It is a “do-er” upper to say the least and we are a couple of weeks off completion now. We don’t live close to the house and took a trip up to do a couple of bits and pieces and the wrap round garden is now an utter jungle with 6 foot weeds / grass !! What is the opinion about if that is acceptable- the buyers are getting it £10,000 less than we wanted as they said they could do a quick sale but do you think we need to pay someone to strim it all down ?  

I would personally just leave the garden. Remove any rubbish and leave in a fair condition. New owners like to mow and generally maintain the garden. Least of your selling worries. 

Sometimes buyers can be as quick as possible but it’s often unforeseen hiccups that slow the process down such as solicitors not talking to each other or searches taking their time. All the best! It’ll be bitter sweet but I’m sure the new owners will take good care of the garden too 

[Deleted User]

You say it's "now an utter jungle", implying it wasn't before. If you filled it up with rubbish then you should remove it. Hire a skip if you need to, or pay someone to take it away.

robatwork

Anyone buying a probate house knows it's unoccupied and that things grow. If all that's in the garden is normal growth as opposed to rubbish from emptying the house, just leave as is.

TheJP

lookstraightahead said:

I would be really disappointed if I was buying and the garden wasn't in the same state. 

A doer upper means the house needs renovating, it doesn't mean it needs to be left in a mess.

If the garden was already in a mess then what's the difference, the buyers know its a probate and likely know the family handling the sale don't live close by. Honestly if you get that disappointed over an overgrown garden then you'll have a shocker as you actually live in the 'doer upper'. The term extends to the whole property not just the internals. Pick your battles in probate life.

cjdew

With something like this, i'd think "what would i like done to me".

For me personally knowing how stressful moving is, and that at worst it needs a few hours of strimming with optional removal of garden waste I would get it done. Paying forward kindness to get it back in other ways. 

Yes they got £10k knocked off, but whose to say any of the full asking price ones would have actually "made it over the line". 

Mr.Generous

I renovate, once weve exchanged I often start on the garden before completion. Wrecks are always worse than you think. Long grass? I'd do cartwheels if that was the biggest unexpected issue I found.