What did the vendor of your house NOT tell you (that they should have) when you came viewing?

Yep...I think yogitree wins the prize for worst vendor to date....

Nothing really serious at all considering all the previous posts but at 27 years old the first house I bought by myself, from a religious couple, I found they had changed all the plugs and light switches for old odd ones when I moved in. But why, I ask myself did they bother to do this, to save pennies?

Well yep...one would expect some sort of integrity from police.

But I've not forgotten when I was in my 20's and living in Grotty Bedsitland the way my "next door neighbour" there had obviously worked out a thing with the local police of her place being a drop-in place where she'd give them coffee whilst they were "on duty". Followed by I did get invited to a police party at their HQ one time and - being in my 20's at the time - I'd got my eyes open as there was a "boyfriend vacancy" to fill and I'd thought there might be someone nice there. There was someone I fancied there and all was going well until he'd obviously picked up on the vibes and told me point blank "I can't go out with someone like YOU" !!!!

Errrr me? Little law-abiding me? I could only put it down to I had started in on my unpaid "career" of being a political activist that I pursued on top of a full-time paid job for about the next 20 years. Cue for me thinking "How come he's been able to find out a thing about me personally like that? and it's none of his business". But yep....though I'm extremely law-abiding - I know my photo will be there several times on their files - for doing nothing wrong (as I figured out how to spot them taking it - and an appropriate reaction to that).

I rather lost respect for the police for that and turning up unexpectedly at my door one time to tell me off/that I was wrong etc about writing a letter to the local newspaper one time - because they'd told WOMEN to stay indoors of an evening because a MAN had been a problem. Errrrm...so why wasnt it the male sex - if anyone - that they told to stay indoors? They came to give me a lecture - and got sent off with a flea in their ear from the lecture I gave them....

CariadAgain It was two police officers who owned this house before me and I didn't appreciate their lies. The male had a highish rank which I thought made it twice as worse.

I once viewed a house I was planning to let out where the teenage son was still snoring in his (stinky) bedroom! His loving mummy said he needed his sleep as he had tired himself out playing football the previous day! It was 2.30 in the afternoon!
I didn’t buy the house!
Three doors along was another house I was viewing, identical to the one I had just seen. What a difference! This house was immaculate, beautifully decorated, and the beds were empty, thankfully! The amazing thing was, both houses were priced the same.

Mistake I can't correct again - "obligation on sellers"...

Crikey yogitree! - I thought there was an obligation on buyers to make sure there was working stuff like water and fuel? Not that that is likely to make some of them stick to their obligations......

Charleygirl5

The elderly lady living in the house on the next street, whose rear windows looked towards my property, didn't exist. Instead, it was parents with teenagers who allowed them to play loud, ghastly music every waking minute of the day. This continued for years.

The police were frequent visitors for other reasons, so it was n't a house to approach.

Ooh dear - the lying little **

At least the elderly lady I found was living next door to my last house only irritated my father when she'd realised he seemed to be handy (ie because he was doing various work on that house - ie my starter one) and kept asking him to come in and do bits and pieces for her (no offer of pay for it!). When he realised she was making a habit of this - and had got a (useless) son living nearby he refused to do any more for her. He needed the time he'd set aside to do work for me (not a stranger).

I think it's fair enough to ask a tradesperson one sees nearby what they'd quote you for doing x/y/z on your house at some future point - but the elderly "far from" a lady that came as a next door neighbour in my current house had obviously tapped my electrician on the shoulder and asked him to change an outside lightbulb for her (only a minor job I know) and she wanted it then and there. He came asking me what I thought he should do about it - to which he got the reply "That's up to you if you choose to do that" - and he did do so - but I bet she didnt offer to pay him. I was annoyed - as I'd walked into a house that needed even more work than I'd bargained on and it had already begun to strike me that tradespeople work would take more time and effort than normal in this area.

That once we bought it the seller would cut off our water supply (as he was separating the farm into two) which entailed us having a new application to the Council to supply us. That hit our pockets hard, along with a new electricity supply! We lived in a static caravan with 2 small children whilst all that was ongoing as we had sold our home to finance the move.

What an old curmudgeon he was but in reflection, I reckon it was painful for him to realise he was too old for the job anymore. . We were young though and learned a lot!

The elderly lady living in the house on the next street, whose rear windows looked towards my property, didn't exist. Instead, it was parents with teenagers who allowed them to play loud, ghastly music every waking minute of the day. This continued for years.

The police were frequent visitors for other reasons, so it was n't a house to approach.

Aveline

Wasn't told that the roof of the block the flat I was buying in had a £1 million roof repair pending!

Your solicitor should have known that!

welbeck

That they would steal the furniture we had paid for.

Welbeck, this happened to us except it was the farm equipment we had paid for when we bought the farm!

Hubby was not amused at all and ended up making a new (padlocked) entryway and anything that was outwith the boundaries of the fencing, but within the boundaries of our purchase were clearly marked - In a bit of an angry way I'm afraid, but it made me laugh (my bad).

crazyH

There is a strange concrete box in the wall of my garage .still don’t know what it is….

Oh, I would have to know! I can lend you a crow bar?

That they would steal the furniture we had paid for.

knspol - eeek!!!!!

Bet the neighbours were glad though that it was you now in that house - instead of previous owners. At least if it's terraced or semi-detached.

During the last couple of years I've seen several articles about a gas explosion having ripped apart a house - and it's always damaged neighbours houses too. Every single house this happened to that I saw was a terrace house and the neighbours always copped for some damage too. I always think it's very irresponsible of the people involved to bypass a meter if they've got another property attached to theirs that might suffer consequent damage because of them.

I know there's been a noticeable little campaign going telling people "It's theft to be charged for your fuel - and this is how to bypass your meter" and a noticeable number of people have duly done just that!! and it's not a safe thing to do and can cause gas explosions. I am aware there are some people that do this too - and something like that campaign is a handy little excuse for them to steal fuel like that.

You've reminded me that someone I used to know in this area bypassed his meters in his (rented) house. He's been reported - and I wonder if the powers-that-be have caught up with him about it....but at least the next household to rent the house he's in shouldn't have problems because of what he has done.

On a previous house move we had bailiffs and police calling on a quite regular basis - goodness knows what our new neighbours thought! Turned out the gas/electric meters had been bypassed and being used illegally, lots of debt etc. Bailiffs especially did not seem to believe us when we told them we weren't the people they were looking for even though we showed ID and told them we'd only been in the house a matter of weeks. We got really frustrated with giving out our solicitors details etc and being treated as liars and thieves.

That her husband was taking a bath when we viewed.

Yep....re neighbours and my own personal take is that there are some really drastic things you do not want to find unexpectedly in the house itself - dry rot, subsidence, woodworm, any damp you hadnt bargained on, roof needing instant replacement you'd not been able to spot - but you hadnt spotted any sign of that.

But bad neighbours is something that is not even under one's own control to fix and sometimes the best you can do is calculate what sort of reason they might move for/age they are/etc to try and calculate when they might move and that problem will hopefully be over.

I could give a list a mile long of what the worst offenders here were like - but calculated that as they were in a large/visibly crumbling house, with 3 stories height and there was only the two of them and they were about my age and I could see he obviously had arthritis or something similar = I figured out pretty much to the month when they'd put the house on the market to get one that wasnt 3 stories high and someone else had at least done basic work on and I was right. Only shame is they still live near enough that they can (and do) "stir it" at any chance they see - but at least it's a blessed relief not to have them in the same road any longer and their wreck of a house is no longer sitting there literally looking abandoned (people used to ask me disbelievingly if there was actually anyone living there it was that neglected). I could have told one of those urban explorer channels on YouTube that there was an abandoned wreck nearby they might like to explore - and they would have believed me...

Mt61

Sarnia

The vendors had a long-standing feud with the neighbour on one side. The roots from their bedraggled but extremely tall pine tree which was right against the boundary fence had lifted the bricks on his drive. They kept saying they would repair his driveway and never did. We later found out that when he had been on a month's holiday the vendors had faithfully promised to relay his drive when in reality they were moving out and we were moving in. We sorted it amicably by paying £1000 to remove the tree and roots and he agreed to foot the bill for his drive. The vendors did not mention this on the paperwork which asks if there are any disputes with the neighbours. Very annoying!

Can you sue for something like this?

It would be very difficult to pursue it as nothing was ever in writing. It would be a case of 'he said' 'they said'. An expense we could have done without.

We bought a Victorian townhouse in Gosforth, we were 23 and 30 and naive, it was only our second house purchase.

The vendors left behind everything they didn’t want…..
enough to fill a skip.

Their cats had sprayed everywhere so when the heating came on the smell made you gag.

We had to lift every carpet and have the floorboards treated professionally before we could lay new carpet.

By some miracle John Lewis had cut and started to lay carpet for an identical property the householder said it wasn’t the colour he ordered, it was pure wool and more than we could afford but they offered it to us at a 60% discount!

We put in a new kitchen and bathroom, redecorated etc.
18 months after moving in we got another company move, we sold at a very healthy profit within 1 hour of signing the EA’s agreement.

We soon forgot the pain of moving in!

Stating the obvious, it is the buyer’s responsibility to get a full structural survey and a surveyors report. Too many people rely on n the cheaper option of the Building Society’s survey which is basically just to say is the house worth what we’re lending?
A detailed survey should flag up structural, electrical, plumbing potential flooding or any other relevant issues and if it is at fault your claim is with the surveyor for failing to spot or mention potential issues. Doesn’t come cheap and for many people it is seen as a corner to be cut.
As for a dirty house…well you might have an idea of what you might expect from viewings. I have always paid my cleaner to come in as soon as the removal van drives away, but most of us will (blushngly) recognise that even a house we thought clean, can look pretty dire when the appliances are moved out and the pictures taken down.

Caveat emptor though

Aldom

Good to know you don't need to remove your roof MOnica.
It's looking like I'll exchange contracts Friday 24th and complete on 31st October. I'm as packed as I can be at the moment.
I doubt there will be any nasty surprises at my 'new' home.....but as they say....the proof of the pudding....

Do come back and tell us if there are any surprises - nasty or nice.

I think the very least most of us get is the house is filthy - yep...I was one that moved into my first house in total ignorance some people didn't clean their houses before selling them on. Cue for my parents had turned up with cleaning materials and shortly afterwards I spotted my then boyfriends parents emerging from their car with buckets and scrubbing brushes.

Good job someone had realised that would be the case...

Good to know you don't need to remove your roof MOnica.
It's looking like I'll exchange contracts Friday 24th and complete on 31st October. I'm as packed as I can be at the moment.
I doubt there will be any nasty surprises at my 'new' home.....but as they say....the proof of the pudding....

Didn't tell us about a serious roof leak.

M0nica

One of the upsides of being a house renovator, is that every house you buy is full of surprises. Jobs you thought you would have to do that turn out to ne unnecessary nd jobs you hadn't expected.

Currently we are relieved to find that we do not have to take the roof off our 'new' home to install insulation. But, while we knew the CH boiler was defunct, we hadn't expected to need to replace the whole system because it is such a Heath Robinson jumble of randomly situated radiators on a system re using partly bigger pipes from 2 previous heating systems.

We once bought a house from a plumber. Every item of plumbing was ‘Heath Robinson’. Later the neighbours told us that if they were replacing their boilers he’d take the old one, apparently to use the bits to keep his going!
Like you were serial renovators, even when we don’t expect to replace things!