Fixtures and fittings form - vendor breach of contract, next steps?

Like Doozergirl, our experience was somewhat worse than yours, but we knew there would be problems and suspected a disposal job, just not how much. It was about 20 large van loads of stuff we couldn't burn, but we had to expose a lot of it with a digger first. On the plus side, disposal at the [STRIKE]tip[/STRIKE] recycling facility was then still free.

We made sure that the rotting ten tonne lorry and several other heavy items of machinery were gone before agreeing to exchange, though.

It's a lottery how much cleaning you'll need to do, although viewing gives some clues; houses that are grubby then, just get worse.

The fraught way in which people often vacate leaves little time for niceties. We arrived to a still-smoking bonfire, which had severely damaged two trees and made pretty holes in the polytunnel plastic, but in all honesty that was due for renewal and the trees made good firewood three years later.

These were not people out to do us down; just folk in a blind panic with all they had to do. The built-in oven they'd agreed to leave expired betwixt exchange and completion, but they left a huge and ancient freezer by way of compensation. People's minds move in strange ways when a house move is imminent!

Oh, and we had the live bare-ended cable too, but it was so old and hidden away, we think it might have been like that when our vendors moved in....

We didn't make a fuss. The price was right, and we 'came on down' with our eyes at least partially open to the idea that it wouldn't be like last time, or the time before that. The clues were all there, just as they were with you.

Do check the junk items. Off the top of my head, I remember a piano stool with mouldy leather top and a non-functional wind-up gramophone both making about £45 at auction.

We are still using the ancient freezer: 30kg of plums went in there a few weeks ago. We are on our 3rd oven....

I believe the Citizens Advice Bureau might do a leaflet on going to small claims court.

For this - I certainly wouldnt go to a solicitor - but I would check out the procedure/cost as to whether I would go to the small claims court about this. I believe it would cost less than £100 for costs involved for this sort of sum - and the money would be refunded when you won (ie from the vendor).

I would imagine this would be the sort of thing the vendor would settle on "the door of the court" in the event - as it looks like an obvious win for you to me from what you've said (provided you've kept proof of what he did - ie photos etc of how you found things).

I agree that the cat is the aspect I would find most upsetting about this personally - poor cat to get treated like this. I'd have probably been a softie and taken the poor thing on personally - with it being so elderly I'd have figured I wouldnt be an inadvertent cat owner for long (and, at that age, they arent likely to do things like climbing the curtains/going out on the rampage/etc). They just want a warm fire to sit by and lap to sit on.

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

I would imagine this would be the sort of thing the vendor would settle on "the door of the court"

Really? My imagination takes me somewhere else altogether.

Winning is only half the battle. The other half is obtaining payment.

The OP feels let-down and I understand that. This sort of thread appears quite regularly, because people typically have high expectations when they decide to move, spending what the OP calls a 'significant amount' of money.

The truth is, however, that some vendors behave badly, or at least differently from our expectations, and the law is a fairly blunt instrument in exacting justice for the matters which really niggle, such as unneccessary delays, lack of information, bad standards of cleanliness, and yes, cruelty to animals.

Those things have happened, but at least they're in the past. Starting proceedings against the vendor will only place them in the future as well, while any conceivable award, even if paid promptly, is insignificant compared with the cost of the transaction.