Moving - to Fill or Not to Fill

[dingg]

Thread somewhat derailed but the French bds we bought the latest house from, where the furniture was part of the deal, scratched every item the morning before we completed, pity our lawyer or us never thought of a clause holding a little back.
The tts took all curtain poles as well and every light bulb, and because we wouldn't agree to pay their outstanding bill to the security service they'd subscribed to they took all of the internal cameras too
s

Eta

They filled non of the holes left from the removal of curtain poles, pictures etc, but tbh I wouldn't have expected them to.

Back on track :-)

Edited by dingg on Monday 13th July 09:54

[DonkeyApple]

GT03ROB said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

Retain part of the payment? How do you manage to do that?

It’s normal practice to hold back a grand or two in escrow to cover things as far as I am aware as the likelihood of any success in chasing them once they’ve got all the moneybis close to zero. It normally gets released to them after three or six months.

Never heard of that before.

I just assumed everyone did this as it seems so logical and we’ve done it on every purchase using different conveyancers. We’ve never requested it, it’s just one of the things the solicitor arranges off their own back as part of the process. And every time I’ve sold it has been requested by the other side.

For me, I would never take a stranger’s word that they would do something and I’d never want the hassle of having to fall back on the law. Money always focussed a stranger’s mind and helps them do the right thing. It’s the largest financial transaction that most people will ever execute combined with large numbers of blokes just being really weird and having fettishes over light bulbs that they are emotionally over involved with.

Maybe it’s a London thing?

[DoubleD]

DonkeyApple said:

GT03ROB said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

Retain part of the payment? How do you manage to do that?

It’s normal practice to hold back a grand or two in escrow to cover things as far as I am aware as the likelihood of any success in chasing them once they’ve got all the moneybis close to zero. It normally gets released to them after three or six months.

Never heard of that before.

I just assumed everyone did this as it seems so logical and we’ve done it on every purchase using different conveyancers. We’ve never requested it, it’s just one of the things the solicitor arranges off their own back as part of the process. And every time I’ve sold it has been requested by the other side.

For me, I would never take a stranger’s word that they would do something and I’d never want the hassle of having to fall back on the law. Money always focussed a stranger’s mind and helps them do the right thing. It’s the largest financial transaction that most people will ever execute combined with large numbers of blokes just being really weird and having fettishes over light bulbs that they are emotionally over involved with.

Maybe it’s a London thing?

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

[DonkeyApple]

DoubleD said:

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

I can’t see how though? Plus, it never has for me buying or selling.

[DoubleD]

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

I can’t see how though? Plus, it never has for me buying or selling.

Because you have a difference in values

[PanicBuyingBogRoll]

Many years ago friends of ours bought the show home on a (actually pretty nice) new build estate. It was the last house to be sold and any trace of the contracts on site had long gone.

They had hired some vans and a few of us helped them move.

We turned up at the new house to find said mate's Mrs pacing up and down the drive having a rather animated phone call.

The house was still kitted out as a show house. It had everything from TVs, ornaments, cutlery, kitchen appliances, bedding, towels. Only thing I'd didn't have was clothing.

We went inside to take a look and quickly realised that a lot of the furniture and electronics was better than their own stuff.

So we unload the vans onto the driveway, sorted out the stuff they wanted to keep. Then spent a very busy day distributing their unwanted furniture to anyone we could find that wanted it before the vans had to go back.

They even got some 'compo' from the builder for the stress and hassle.

[DonkeyApple]

DoubleD said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

I can’t see how though? Plus, it never has for me buying or selling.

Because you have a difference in values

The value is unaffected. It hasn’t anything to do with the value or the lender. It’s simply an agreed amount held by the buyers conveyancer in their escrow. Ot simply gets released to the vendor down the line as agreed.

I’m genuinely amazed that people are entering into such enormous and fraught transactions without doing this. As you can see from all the tales above, the fact that there is a legal agreement in place is not sufficient to focus the mind of some sellers and clearly few buyers are then spending the time and money to enforce but realising that it is cheaper and easier to wear the loss personally.

[DoubleD]

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

I can’t see how though? Plus, it never has for me buying or selling.

Because you have a difference in values

The value is unaffected. It hasn’t anything to do with the value or the lender. It’s simply an agreed amount held by the buyers conveyancer in their escrow. Ot simply gets released to the vendor down the line as agreed.

I’m genuinely amazed that people are entering into such enormous and fraught transactions without doing this. As you can see from all the tales above, the fact that there is a legal agreement in place is not sufficient to focus the mind of some sellers and clearly few buyers are then spending the time and money to enforce but realising that it is cheaper and easier to wear the loss personally.

Its money that you might not get off the other side, that will be enough to make lenders uneasy.

You have a contract in place with the other party, so it isnt really needed.

[DanL]

DoubleD said:

Well its not normal anymore.

Why would you need to retain money from each other when you set up a contract with them before the sale?

Happened for both my flat sales - money held back in case of undeclared / unknown maintenance bills.

Didn’t happen on the purchase of the house I’m now in, as far as I know...

[DonkeyApple]

DoubleD said:

Its money that you might not get off the other side, that will be enough to make lenders uneasy.

You have a contract in place with the other party, so it isnt really needed.

It’s the vendor’s money that is being withheld not the buyers so the lender doesn’t care. But it’s also not part of the value in those terms anyway. It’s of no consequence to the lender other than the positive aspect that it protects their client.

And as we can see from all the examples of breach of contract and the subsequent non enforcement we all know that a contract means nothing at a certain threshold. At which point the power of actual, real money overwhelms.

[ALPandy90]

When we moved into our first house, we had a couple of months overlap with the place we were renting at the time, so we used the time to decorate and renovate before moving in.

On the day we got the keys, we discovered the previous owner had left a large (f*king huge!) dining room table and six chairs. It was hideous too. A few weeks later, I was in the house doing some painting and found the previous owner trying his keys in the door. Fortunately I'd changed the locks, and words were had. I asked when he was going to take his table, and he replied it was a housewarming present to us. Great. Thing cost me a fortune to dispose of in the end!

And we still get his mail delivered. And his (deceased) wife's credit card bills...

[DonkeyApple]

DanL said:

appened for both my flat sales - money held back in case of undeclared / unknown maintenance bills.

Didn’t happen on the purchase of the house I’m now in, as far as I know...

With an apartment it would pretty much be essential because what are the chances of exchanging on the day the management accounts are fixed. On a freehold property it has more bearing on making sure the F&F appendix terms are adhered to and having easy, cost and time free recourse if not.

[DoubleD]

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

Its money that you might not get off the other side, that will be enough to make lenders uneasy.

You have a contract in place with the other party, so it isnt really needed.

It’s the vendor’s money that is being withheld not the buyers so the lender doesn’t care. But it’s also not part of the value in those terms anyway. It’s of no consequence to the lender other than the positive aspect that it protects their client.

And as we can see from all the examples of breach of contract and the subsequent non enforcement we all know that a contract means nothing at a certain threshold. At which point the power of actual, real money overwhelms.

Both parties are likely to have lenders, so that persons lender will care.

But yes I can see how it can help.

[oblio]

DonkeyApple said:

GT03ROB said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

Retain part of the payment? How do you manage to do that?

It’s normal practice to hold back a grand or two in escrow to cover things as far as I am aware as the likelihood of any success in chasing them once they’ve got all the moneybis close to zero. It normally gets released to them after three or six months.

Never heard of that before.

I just assumed everyone did this as it seems so logical and we’ve done it on every purchase using different conveyancers. We’ve never requested it, it’s just one of the things the solicitor arranges off their own back as part of the process. And every time I’ve sold it has been requested by the other side.

For me, I would never take a stranger’s word that they would do something and I’d never want the hassle of having to fall back on the law. Money always focussed a stranger’s mind and helps them do the right thing. It’s the largest financial transaction that most people will ever execute combined with large numbers of blokes just being really weird and having fettishes over light bulbs that they are emotionally over involved with.

Maybe it’s a London thing?

I've bought and sold 8 houses in the last 30 years and never had this nor been offered it as a service by all the different solicitors. My wife has bought and sold around the same number of houses too prior to us getting together, and she has never come across it either!

I can see the sense in it however we have never had a problem thus far.

[devnull]

DonkeyApple said:

DanL said:

appened for both my flat sales - money held back in case of undeclared / unknown maintenance bills.

Didn’t happen on the purchase of the house I’m now in, as far as I know...

With an apartment it would pretty much be essential because what are the chances of exchanging on the day the management accounts are fixed. On a freehold property it has more bearing on making sure the F&F appendix terms are adhered to and having easy, cost and time free recourse if not.

Yes, I had an 500 quid retainer applied on the sale of my flat. What really annoyed me was that it wasn’t disclosed until about 15 minutes before completion. It took over 2 years to get it back, because funnily enough on my end the case with the conveyancer was closed and the buyers were in no rush to forward on paperwork.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again - i will never own a flat again, even if its for BTL purposes.

[MXRod]

Almost 40 years ago we became the second owners of our 1936 built house .
When we moved in , we nearly had to move out straight away . 18m old son was handed over to grandparents .
The house was filthy, deep brown stains from tobacco smoke , carpets deeply ingrained with dirt and err stuff . The house did have some period features , large china sink in kitchen , Bakelite furniture on heavy panel doors , picture rails among others , in hindsight we should have try to keep some of the features, but that is history now.

Lavatory stained from lack of bleach the wooden seat was removed and dumped within 10 mins of taking the house over and the bowel cleaned with new seat fitted , the male that had lived there with his mother was anatomically challenged as there were pee stains everywhere .

The people has cats , and where the fridge had been standing was a mat of cats hair , the gas boiler had flames licking up the sides caused by the heat exchanger being blocked by , yup, cats hairs .

They had forgotten a washing machine , left loads of War Department issue cupboards in the loft as well as 2 or 3 gas masks and a baby bed come gas mask .when they returned for the washing machine , the rest of the rubbish was loaded as well
The same day we moved in , with the help of my brother , all carpets were lifted, well, unstuck from the floors ,boiler covers dismantled , and the boiler cleaned , and the nursery completely stripped ready for painting etc the next day .
We were never given a forwarding address , and for some time bailiff letters would arrive , and were RTS , I manage to get the address from the elderly next door neighbour , and the next bailiff letter was returned with a forwarding address , How did I know they were bailiff letters? window envelope strong lamp and red print .

[blueg33]

DoubleD said:

DonkeyApple said:

DoubleD said:

I think that the issue is it causes problems with lenders.

I can’t see how though? Plus, it never has for me buying or selling.

Because you have a difference in values

Not sure I agree.

A retention is held by solicitors with an undertaking that the funds are released when the conditions are met. This protects the lender too.

[UnclePat]

I arranged a Retention on the house we bought at the start of the year.

Was to ensure the seller sorted the costs of (successfully) addressing some outstanding Building Control issues. If they had failed to secure permission, or just couldn’t be bothered trying, then within 30 days we would have retained the funds as compensation. In the end it focussed the seller’s mind and they did a great job in sorting everything out.

As stated, money tends to rather focus minds. Suing over breach of contract is not a route you really want to be taking as an alternative.