Logistics of completion day.. 2 hours or less to move?

Katiehound

and it might be raining!

A friend moved in late February.
 The removal firm arrived at 8am.
 They arrived at the new house around noon.
 A small sum of money was owing by buyer no. 4 (and it was a small sum.)
Keys finally released at 5pm, removal men left at 8pm. Before 5pm no one could access their new home- they were all parked up outside.
Seriously anything can happen. The solicitor said she had never had anything happen quite like that.

TheJP

faerielight said:

i think ill get it all dropped off on the front garden early and wait in the car  for the keys to my new house 

When i bought my first house the owners thought they had sufficient time to move themselves, we were due to complete around 2pm. We completed at 2.15pm and arrived at the house with keys at 2.30pm, they were still emptying the house and by 3.15pm we asked them to 'get out' as we had had enough by now. They had to dump a lot of stuff on the drive so we could get into our house to start loading. The house was also filthy and they had to leave all their garden stuff until the next day.

Removal companies are worth the expense in these situations.

ian1246

My house seller was a god damn nightmare. Completion at 1pm - at 10.30am my dad drove past the house and they hadnt even started loading their one small van.

Completion happened at 1pm - i rocked up with my removal company, only to have to sit and wait for another 2hours as they continued emptying the house.

By this point we'd had enough- so my removals started unloading their stuff out of the house onto the front drive whilst bringing my belongings in via the back door. 

The seller was still collecting her belongings off my drive at 9.30pm at night...

Don't be that seller. Plan ahead and be aware if you deny your buyer gaining entry at the time of completion, you could be liable for any extra costs incurred - as an example, my removals had a contract where if they are on past 4pm I have to pay them extra. Fortunately I had taken out their "late keys" insurance policy so it didn't actually cost me extra - had it done so, I'd have raised a breach of contract with the buyer and forced them to pay the extra removal costs as a result of their breach of contract (house not being empty at point of completion).

Most removal companies have similar conditions - meaning if you delay your buyer's entry, you could find yourselves paying for removals (theirs) regardless...

I would suggest you think about how your going to satisfy the conditions of your contract - since it's entirely possible if you don't (i.e. needing 2 or 3 trips) you could be liable for additional costs (buyers extra removal fee's).

ButterCheese

We had to load the van up the night before, as others have said, dump everything out and go back for the second load.  At the end of the day, what are they going to do if you overstay your move-out slot by a couple hours?  Ask you to move out quicker?!  These times are stated as guidelines but both parties will have some sort of delay.  We even had to take in a load of stuff from our buyers, which we kindly filled our dining room with, because they had moved out 1 week previous and could not move in before we moved out

saajan_12

faerielight said:

i think ill get it all dropped off on the front garden early and wait in the car  for the keys to my new house 

If your sellers can accommodate that.. they'll be moving too, and may well be using the front garden to bring their stuff out before loading up. 

Do remember there are other parties who are just as stressed 

Flugelhorn

ButterCheese said:

We had to load the van up the night before, as others have said, dump everything out and go back for the second load.  At the end of the day, what are they going to do if you overstay your move-out slot by a couple hours?  Ask you to move out quicker?!  These times are stated as guidelines but both parties will have some sort of delay.  We even had to take in a load of stuff from our buyers, which we kindly filled our dining room with, because they had moved out 1 week previous and could not move in before we moved out

this is what happens in many case, I have sat outside a house waiting for the vendors to pack up - our removals ended up offering to help as they were bored sitting around waiting - got in about 4.30pm on the friday before a bank holiday 

kimwp

ButterCheese said:

We had to load the van up the night before, as others have said, dump everything out and go back for the second load.  At the end of the day, what are they going to do if you overstay your move-out slot by a couple hours?  Ask you to move out quicker?!  These times are stated as guidelines but both parties will have some sort of delay.  We even had to take in a load of stuff from our buyers, which we kindly filled our dining room with, because they had moved out 1 week previous and could not move in before we moved out

Well technically isn't the house and its contents yours at that point? So they could tell you to jog on and leave whatever is in the house as they own it now.

user1977

kimwp said:

ButterCheese said:

We had to load the van up the night before, as others have said, dump everything out and go back for the second load.  At the end of the day, what are they going to do if you overstay your move-out slot by a couple hours?  Ask you to move out quicker?!  These times are stated as guidelines but both parties will have some sort of delay.  We even had to take in a load of stuff from our buyers, which we kindly filled our dining room with, because they had moved out 1 week previous and could not move in before we moved out

Well technically isn't the house and its contents yours at that point?

No, don't be silly.

peterhjohnson

Katiehound said:

 A small sum of money was owing by buyer no. 4 (and it was a small sum.)
Keys finally released at 5pm, removal men left at 8pm. Before 5pm no one could access their new home- they were all parked up outside.
Seriously anything can happen. The solicitor said she had never had anything happen quite like that.

It seems to me that a better system is needed. Here's my (amateur) system :

• As Completion Day approaches, one of the solicitors opens an account for the chain
• S/he works out who (including lenders) will be paying into the chain on Completion Day
• Those due to pay in, must do so by 1000 on Completion Day and failure, even by a second, even by 1p gets them saddled with a fee/fine of at least £1000
• So, by 1001 it is extremely likely that the chain account has the funds to pay everyone and the "lead solicitor" notifies everyone that all keys should be released by (say) 1400
• People due money from the chain account  will get paid in parallel, not via the slow and uncertain daisy chain.
• In rare cases where someone hasn't paid into the chain by 1000, the lead solicitor tells everyone and starts the process of dealing with the defaulter. 

Flo87

The best option in your case as you have already hired a van it`s a self store unit( some cost from £1 for the first month).
You will drop multiple things in the unit the night before, and early morning you can fill again the van, and when you have the keys for the new place first you`ll need to do some technical things before unloading your stuff like changing the locks, quick check for any unknown issues that you couldn`t see before, and maybe a quick clean.