handing over keys before completion

soolin

Thank you all for your thoughts. I will add a question to my list for monday to ask whether the buyers know they should have some insurance.

I still have the property insured for basics as the house has been empty for some months now. I planned to keep the insurance going until the day I actually get the proceeds on behalf of the owner.

I also thought that I should take meter readings, and should I cann the gas and electric people on Monday and let them know I am selling, or should I do that once it has finally gone?

olliesmummy06

We did the meter readings from the day we got the keys....only fair we thought as we were the ones using the gas and electric whilst decorating and cleaning etc.

clutton_2

i got the keys to my property (25 years ago tho !) a month early and was merrily hacking off plaster when my solicitor said there was a problem - he had unearthed mention of an old lease that was archived and could only be viewed one day a week. i didn't tell him what i had done, the lease was fine, i had a shed load of work done before i moved in.

if you have had another death in the family, i would accept your solicitors recommendations here, and let him do the worrying. let it go and get some rest .........

Nenen

So sorry to hear of all your difficulties Soolin.

I can quite understand your concern, although we have been on the other side of the fence and it certainly helped us out! When we bought a house 20 years ago I was heavily pregnant and had a toddler too. We were moving across the country to an area where we didn't know a soul, my dh was just starting a new job and there was no way we would be able to do the necessary repairs and redecorating (including removing thick layers of mouldy wallpaper) ourselves. The house had been empty for a number of years (the man who owned it had gone off to live with his gf) and it was in a terrible state... certainly not habitable for a new baby!:eek: Fortunately for us the seller felt able to trust us enough to let us have keys on exchange (4 weeks prior to completion) so that all the manky carpets (his dog had peed all over the place prior to him going) could be stripped out and the decorators we were employing could start work. It worked well for us as it meant that at least some of the work was finished by the time we moved in. Is there a similar reason why your buyers are so keen to start work and don't want to wait until completion?

As far as I remember we didn't have to sign anything special to do this, we just had a 'gentlemen's agreement'. The problem nowdays is that we have been bombarded with media stories about things going wrong, people being conned etc. We are all understandably far less trusting in this sort of situation and much more worried about litigation.

Having said all that, it sounds as if you could do without all the additional worry of this request and so, unless you are worried the couple will pull out if you don't agree, I would be inclined to say you are very sorry but due to current circumstances you have to decline. Good luck with it all