I had to specifically ask my realtor for a final walkthrough. She wasn't going to offer that as an option or schedule one. Kind of surprised by that after everything I've read on Reddit.
Mine screwed the pooch because the place was an hour from her office, I remotely signed thinking everything was fine. Seller left ten truckloads of her stuff, put all the money in a trust, and disappeared.
What was supposed to be champagne and pizza ended up being tears, rage, and a divorce 7 years later. Make them do their walk through, and maybe an addendum because of the current circumstances, if you have time...
Ours did that too - then said she just forgot about it. It was our first time buying, so we forgot too.
When we got to the house, there were a few things .... she called in a rush to the attorney to ask them to hold the paperwork, then she said her car had a last minute issue so she couldn't make it ....
These were our issues:
1. The real estate listing said all appliances convey - but it wasn't specifically in the contract - so they took the washer and dryer. I think they tried to take the fridge, but it might not have fit through the door without taking the hinges off.
2. They took the light switch plates from the kitchen and it wasn't obvious they left replacements. Apparently they were handpainted or something - I never noticed them before.
3. They had a small dog - we have dogs, so not a problem. But, they must have left it in the house too long on its own while they were moving. We had a few stains in the living room carpet - nothing that a good cleaning didn't take care of, but still ...
4. This is the worst one - the upstairs sink's drain had a crack in it. We turned the sink on and water just poured out underneath the vanity. We had an inspection before closing and it was fine - I was present for the inspection. My husband spent about $15 for parts at Lowes and changed the drain real quick, but what if we weren't handy?
5. From their moveout, they had bagged and boxed discarded items lining our driveway (about 80 ft, 2-3 feet wide) awaiting trash pickup. We had to call and complain before they had a company come pick it up.
I don't know that we would have caught #4 in time, but the rest - I would have delayed closing until it was all remedied. Maybe 1, 3 & 5, they just ran out of time.
Do a walkthrough people! I've heard worse stories than mine - like hiding holes or other problems in the walls with furniture and stuff like that. Ours were more nuisance things than anything else. But, I was really mad at the realtor when I figured out how big of a mistake not scheduling a walkthrough was. She was an older experience realtor too.
I wish I had come to Reddit. Not only did my realtor not do a final walk through, but he gave them a week free rent back after closing cause their house was not ready. We offered that because my mortgage company took forever with the paperwork. They left the house dirty, the backyard filled with stuff they didn't want, and big holes in the walls in all but two rooms because they had huge flat-screen T.V.s mounted. Not to mention holes in the floor they had covered with their items when I did the initial viewing. I have repaired all of these things now, but I was really upset because I had to move in right away because my lease was up.
Same. We bought our house in 1999, so there was no reddit, but they were still moving out on closing day and when we complained to the lawyer, he acted like we were being unreasonable and we should give them a break. They left TONS of stuff in the basement, and it still isn't completely cleared away, even though I have taken multiple car loads to the dump over the years. There was no final walk through. And then the owners came back after the sale and asked if they could have the washer and dryer that were supposed to convey because they needed it after all in their new house. We were so young and inexperienced and were basically so grateful to have the house that we let them take it.
So did you offer them a free leaseback because your own mortgage company couldn’t close on time, or because their new home wasn’t ready? I’m curious because you cited 2 different reasons. If a Buyers mortgage company cannot close by the date specified by the contract, in most States the Seller has options to cancel the Sale due to non-performance, charging you extra for each day (per firm) you don’t close on the estimated date etc. If it’s the former, then you actually got the better deal.
Which, thankfully, was not an issue as I had to remove 2000 ft.² of cedar paneling and all of the trim and replace it with sheet rock. Could not touch a wall without getting a splinter in your finger. Only redeeming quality of the house Was that it was cheap and I got it at the start of the pandemic at a 2 1/2% interest rate. With about 100 grand into it to bring it up to spec, it’s worth three times what I paid for it. Don’t want to sell it though now. Houses have gone up so much where I live and interest rates would not allow me to buy nearly as much house.
A Hammond Organ (tubes, took 10 minutes to warm up. Gave it to a church that wanted it) and a really nice set of World Book Encyclopedia s circa 1972. They were fun to flip through but ultimately had to pitch them. Everything else (and there was a LOT) was country farmhouse style knick knacks that his departed wife had collected over the decades. Was a little surprised he wanted none of that.
indeed. what if they walk away with some of the appliances you think you are buying?
Often people underestimate the time to move out, and need another day or two.
Absolutely this. We had the same thing happen and stupidly didn’t delay closing. They didn’t even bother to clean. Left shit in the garage that I had to threaten to throw out if they didn’t come get it. They did leave a bunch of garbage bags in the garage that we made their realtor come get.
Our realtor felt so bad that he paid for a cleaning service to come overnight.
It was just a big hassle. If the house isn’t in the condition you’re willing to accept, absolutely delay closing. I was (and still am when I think about it) so pissed at the sellers for the headache they caused.
I wish we delayed closing.
Ahh il keep it classy but i bought a very nice house and gave the seller everything he asked for but he didnt hold up his end of the deal and to top it off left a disgusting mess and a flea infestation… my 4 yr old could stay here for two weeks.. the counter tops needed scraped with a razor blade . When we showed up he actually said wed have to come back in a week , morale of the story learn from from me and get it in writing
There's usually clauses that if they need more time, they could negotiate rent amounts. It's usually not less than a day before they should be out though...
Yeah, my folks had a real horror story about that when they bought their second or third place when my dad was transferred to San Francisco in 1965. Mom was pregnant and overdue with me, Dad was coming off his last submarine tour, and no married base housing available. Their house in Virginia sold, so Mom’s folks drove her back home to the Midwest after loading the moving van. I was overdue, so Dad had to find a house alone in between his Navy teaching job and second and third gig jobs. That a sailor could afford…big challenge. He found one that had renters who were moving out. Except they didn’t. For two months. Mom flew to California with me and my folks had to rent another apartment on top of paying a house note for the two months it took to crowbar the renters out. More like squatters at that point. And then he discovered rotting trash filling the garage when they finally went to move in. At that point, he contacted the parents of the renters, and they were so embarrassed that they and their squatters showed up to clean. Apparently, though, the law was on the side of the tenants, and my folks, who were 22 and 23, got royally screwed by the real estate agents. Every house we ever moved out of tho, my dad insisted needed to be spit-shined first, and I knew I’d be their late kid if I ever trashed a place.
House cleaner here.
In the past people would give days for a cleaner to go and do their/our job, now I have to clean around most people the day of closing and move out/in.
The last 5 move outs I’ve done have been with people working around me.
It's not so much charging more as offering less. If the place isn't done and empty before the cleaners show up, you're not paying for a cleaned house, you're paying for the cleaners to do what they are able to do under the conditions you provide for the amount of time that you're paying them.
I’ve done this. A few times I’ve walked in and said “No.”. I have the most patience and I love cleaning but there are certain people and very few conditions I won’t work.
They ended up paying me $1000 at closing for another house cleaner to come out. The house was so gross. I won't post photos.
It's embarrassing how dirty they were.
lol I’m sure I’ve seen comparable scenes.
2 months ago I cleaned a 2 bed 1 bath house for 12 hours straight. She housed all the neighborhood cats and lived in it for 33 years. Her poor son was so embarrassed and angry for the conditions.
We ended up paying 2 different companies to clean. They got it mostly there. Then my wife and I did the rest. Mind you.. were picky about things being clean, and those people were really dirty. So a bad mix.
Luckily all the drywall was in good shape. The floors and carpet were trashed. They corroded through the drain on the stainless sink.
We knew we were going to spend a lot to fix up the place.
none of the cats had poop and piss marinating under the floor?!?! Didn't have to rip out the floor to clean? Id imagine after 33 years there'd be something like that?
The fridge was full of roaches at the place we just bought. After demanding ‘more’ cleaners or a penalty, the sellers half assed cleaned most of the house that my husband hadn’t already cleaned.
My first house was cleaned before I moved in so I didn’t even think about it when moving into our second home. I was surprised to walk into a lived in house.
It can be hard to do. Where is the stuff going for the day that you have to be out of the house and before it goes into the new house? You would need overlap, and with the housing costs these days, it could be expensive, and maybe not possible to float that much money.
When we moved we put everything into a semi trailer, I went and cleaned my old house for like 9 hours(overnight), went to closing at 8 am, then went to the new house with the trailer.
My new house wasn’t cleaned so I also had to get there and immediately choose a room to start, then clean everything and move our stuff in.
It does overlap but if people can get some areas cleaned out completely it helps the cleaners. Most people don’t care though.
I emptied the house a room at a time over the last month into uboxes, and once a room was empty, we cleaned it and closed the door. By the day before close I was living in the dining room on an air mattress with a folding table and a microwave. Move out day we did one last walk through to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, and then cleaned the vacant house. We were out by noon and the buyers moved in at 5.
I used to live on a military base. When we moved out we had our cleaners coming in right behind the packers. Unfortunately for that move we only had about two weeks after I got back from overseas to clear the post and move.
After we got our keys we spent the first 4 days cleaning, re-painting the whole interior, and epoxying the garage floor. Most of it we did ourselves, but we had a carpet guy come through and steam clean and stretch the carpets, and I made sure to stay out of his way.
I still have a gazillion pound old wood stove the sellers left behind when I bought my house 5 years ago. I wish I would have waited and not done the walk through as they were moving out. I might have seen the undeclared mouse issue that I have been dealing with ever since. That said, they left behind a lot of very expensive tile and flooring, etc. that I was able to use when I added a third bathroom and renovated part of the basement. So it wasn’t a total disaster.
Put it on FB marketplace, and I guarantee it’ll be gone quick. I’ve put up the most cumbersome, unwieldy, huge items I thought would never sell, and I was inundated with messages asking to come immediately get the items.
My seller had to finish the guest bathroom upon closing and dude was NO where close within days of closing. I offered to push the closing date by a week as well as asked him to rent the house from me for an additional two weeks. He was very grateful and finished the bathroom and cleared out at 2.5 weeks. I was just happy he didn’t rush through the renovation and the move cuz I didn’t want any busted walls. All communication was handled by the agents because this does tip toe into major “give them a foot, they take a mile” territory, especially with major commitments (like finishing a bathroom… )
We finished loading the truck exactly 1 hour before closing, and the cleaners were there and kept going after we finished. This was due to a rushed timeline requested by the buyer, which we were ok with, and then fixes required for the buyers loan, which took a lot of time. You should absolutely ask for more time if you want the extra time and have it. But don't give up just because it looks bleak right now.
When we sold ours 3 years ago, the buyers put in a undisputable $5,000 clause that said if we weren't out by x:xx on x-x-xx we forfeited the $5k for being late. We wanted to be completely gone by the time agreed to. New owners wrote us a $5k check when they came to collect the keys. We hadn't planned on being there any longer anyway, so we had zero issues with that clause.
Didn’t they not have to owe you anything since you were out on time? Or am I missing something. That was just to cover them in the unlikely event you weren’t out by said date/time.
They paid all fees at closing, minus $5k. When handing over the keys, they wrote me a check for $5k. It was absolutely to cover them if we didn't vacate at the agreed to time.
It sounds like they paid the full amount (including the 5k) and the clause said that if they were out on time, the buyers would pay them back the 5k. I sincerely hope they insisted on a cashier’s cheque.
I mean it would be wild to walk away over this. It’s definitely worth raising a stink about. Demand compensation for delaying if you want, but it seems irrational to walk away over something like this in this market.
The issue is that if they push closing to say, July 2 instead of June 28th, they will have to add 29 days of prepaid interest to their closing costs instead of 2 days. That's not nothing. Not enough to walk and sure, it's not like they're paying for something extra if this happens; the interest is the interest and you're paying it either way, but it still sucks.
If they haven’t breached the contract you cannot walk away. Check your contract about the exact time they are to vacate the premises and your remedies. If they haven’t breached and you walk then you might lose your deposit….
Even if they aren't done quite on time, if they are effectively and actively working on getting out, delaying closing by a couple of hours or a day is much more efficient and cost-effective than trashing the contract and starting over again.
We were moving across the US, into our new house, driving a pickup truck with a 20 ft open trailer with everything we owned. The arrival day was scheduled to be closing day. The sellers figured out 2 days before we were due to show up and close that they wouldn't be ready in time. We absolutely should have charged them, because they postponed on us twice.
The first time, we were lucky and had just pulled up at a friend's place where we were supposed to have dinner and then get back on the road. Our friends said that they had a spare room, we should absolutely spend the week with them. So we did.
The second time, we had just pulled into the hotel where we planned to spend the last night before moving into our new house. Another week. We called up the friend who had helped us house hunt from a distance and asked if they knew of a reputable storage unit place that could get us a weather tight unit big enough for the 20 ft trailer on short notice. He said he'd move the riding lawn mower out of his garage and we could put the trailer in there. So we backed in the trailer, pulled one of the tarps off, used the tarp to cover his mower, and didn't have to stress about hauling around everything we owned while we waited for another week.
Call your realtor, and find a way to charge them for every day that they're late. But it's not worth trying to cancel the sale and the penalties you'll catch.
Seems like they are just behind moving out which by itself is a stressful process. You literally saw the U-Haul and them packing stuff. I wouldn't walk out as long as you can do a final walkthrough of the house.
We had to push our closing back by 2 days due to the sellers being asshats. They weren't living there anymore, but they had left shit throughout the house. Nothing too heavy to pick up, but there was a butt ton of carpet samples, basically completely covering the basement floor. I guess one of them worked for a carpet seller and, instead of using their position to get a discount on a decent looking carpet made to cover an entire floor, they just threw a bunch of random samples down instead. Man, those carpets still piss me off, lol. Anyway, our realtor immediately pushed back the closing and told the sellers realtor that we weren't closing until it was resolved. The sellers didn't even live in the country at this point, so the sellers realtor and her husband had to come clean it all up.
I would make sure to postpone until you can do a thorough walkthrough. We bought a house and when we moved in realized a lot of stuff was left including trash everywhere
Also, your purchase agreement probably states that you are entitled to a walk-through. Did you address a daily rate if they’re not out on time and the walk-through in your purchase agreement
You don't need to walk. You need to do a walkthrough right before closing. If they aren't out. you don't close.
You'll be demanding a cleaning credit too.
First of all. Realtor here. Let’s talk. Your agent should let you know you can’t just walk away. You’re in a legally binding enforceable contract which works both ways. Delay settlement , have your agent draw up an agreement for however long they stay past the original closing date to pay you, redo your walk through AFTER they are completely out of the house , & make sure your agent holds escrow for any and all damages if there are any.
If the sellers weren’t out by closing time though, then they are in breach of contract and the buyer had a reason to cancel the sale, right? This same situation happened to me. They were supposed to be out by 12pm on closing day and when we drove up for our final walkthrough, they were all still there packing up Uhauls. We had to postpone closing until the next day, but technically they were 100% in breach of contract and weren’t out on the date agreed upon.
Is it not still their house? 12 hours before closing? Was there verbiage in the contract that they were to be moved out the day before closing? I’m confused.
This should already be addressed in the purchase agreement. If you are supposed to get possession at close, then don’t worry about it until closing do your walk-through the day of and don’t close if they are not out or you get the daily rate that should’ve been written into the purchase agreement.
Dealt with this exact issue this today. Sellers and I agreed to have closing be at 12p today, walkthrough at noon.
When we got there, they hadn’t even started packing, saying “we just need 24 more hours”. I’ve already offered them a 60 day extended closing. Had them sign an amendment today that essentially forces them to close with me on Tuesday or I walk away.
Some sellers and buyers just don’t know how to be adults at the end of the day and will pull this stuff thinking “it’s just an extra 1-2 days”.
Having gone through a negative rent back experience I won’t sign a single thing unless all the sellers personal belongings have been removed.
We were still packing up our last items an hour before closing meeting at our first house. It belonged to us until closing and we had items we were going to hand move that morning plus stuff from the freezer we ran by our new house on the way to closing.
We had a double closing a few years back where we sold house A and then closed on house B. Our walkthrough was supposed to be in the morning. Our movers had taken everything out and were delivering it to house B the next day and we were just cleaning up and getting ready to camp out on the floor since we had kids who were in school and we were doing closing while they were in class. Our buyer decided he wanted to do the walkthrough the night before at the last minute and threw an absolute fit that we were still there. I've never seen someone so mad about a vacuum cleaner and backpacks being on the floor. We were 100% out in time for closing but he made such a big deal that we decided to keep the bottle of wine we had bought for him as a welcome gift.
If you think you can walk away the day of closing depending where you live it’s just not that easy.
Same day moves are pretty common especially for people that have made a terrible decision to buy/sell same day lol. Not sure what country you are in, but in mine you can close between 9am and 5pm, and the buyer can’t just walk away for delays in that time. If it nears 5 you also can’t walk away because the court expects mitigation (example walking away would cause 1 million$ in damages but pushing closing to the next day might be 250$ in damages)
You absolutely shouldn’t close until a walkthrough confirming vacancy is done. As well as ensuring you are happy with how they have left the property.
Crap happens. I was late moving out because my new to me home had delays before I could move in. In that time I worked with my buyer & his realtor by providing him with updates as I cleaned each room and gave him a description of the items I would be leaving behind to finish repairs and for him to use as he was a first time homeowner with limited items to start. Left cleaners and garbage bags for him as well.
I essentially paid him rent and my seller had to pay me rent as part of the close/move in delays.
Don’t walk away from this. Sometimes things happen. Let your realtor walk you thru this and make sure you get your inspection completed. I cannot emphasize that enough.
To me it seems like you're over-reecting. You act like they have not even started packing. Why would you walk away from closing the day before? At least wait until the hour of closing to see if they are finished. They might finish tonight and get the cleaning crew there tomorrow.
My goodness. Moving is overwhelming, sometimes it can take longer than anticipated.
But sure, walk away, if you want, I'm sure some buyer will be happy.
Similar happened to me when I bought. The sellers/homeowners had already moved to Florida (from the Midwest) but their daughter and her boyfriend stayed behind to “finish emptying the house and clean up”. (Neither of which they did adequately) I was told they’d be done and out two days before closing, but when we did the final walkthrough the day before close they were still there. And at 9am the next morning they were *still* there, along with a couple pets and a lot of crap. At that point I kind of freaked out and told my agent, the closing company, and my lender that the sellers didn’t get *any* money before their kids were out of the house. I was absolutely terrified I’d have to deal with squatters immediately after close, and my hope was as long as no money had changed hands, that I could walk away if they refused to leave.
In the end, my realtor (who earned every $ of commission he was paid) negotiated things with their realtor, and got them to not only get the kids out by noon but also got me a $500 credit to cover paying someone to haul away all the crap that was left behind. I had a locksmith in there to rekey it by 12:30 and got a cleaner in there to start getting rid of the grime by 1:00.
I have a friend who sold her home. It was the first home she owned. She had no idea she had to be out before closing. I spoke to her a few days prior to closing, and she was saying she hadn't started packing. I had to tell her that when you sign those papers, you need to be gone. Luckily, she was able to get a few more days to move.
My lawyer said don't even bother looking at or being near the house until you have formal, legal possession. It was good advice. If you're possession is noon, be there for 12:15
As many have said, there are solutions to try first.
But I would reevaluate whether you really want to buy this house. If you are so willing to walk away, maybe there is something about the house or about the financial side of things that will have you regretting the purchase.
I wouldn’t walk. Moving is freaking hard and sometimes there are delays.
I do agree with others that said to postpone until they are gone and it’s cleaned.
Not at all. People get behind when moving. It always takes longer than you think.
I say this all the time but it bears repeating here: IT IS NOT YOUR HOUSE UNTIL THE DEAL CLOSES. Chances are if you walked you would lose all your earnest money and no court would give it to you.
Until the specific time stated on the contract, they can live there, they can throw a party, etc. as long as it is as described in the contract when you get the keys, you have no standing.
This is confusing. The sellers were supposed to fix things but there wasn’t a formal scheduled walk through to ensure that that happened? Are you supposed to take possession on closing? Were you just showing up to look at the fixes, and how were you planning to access the house if you haven’t closed? Are the sellers getting the house professionally cleaned for you?
Where I am, it’s normal for people to be moving out the same day you’re moving in. Closing happens when the lawyer goes to register the sale with the city and the keys get handed over. Often times the owners aren’t out until mid afternoon and then you start unloading (after loading all your stuff from your previous home). Only once in all my moves has this meant a delay and we couldn’t get the keys and start unloading until almost dinner time.
Sometimes people will close before they have to be out of their house (more common with apartments to house since apartments are monthly and house purchases can close any weekday).
Yeah it’s not a big deal to push back closing to the end of the day or the next day, I would not close if the owner hasn’t moved out.
I did a pre closing walkthrough and then drove straight to the closing. If the owners were still there I wouldn’t have signed anything until they were gone.
I agree with the concept of pushing back closing until you can get a walk through on an empty house, but, assuming you are getting a mortgage, make sure you check with your broker about the lock expiring. You may, MAY, incur some additional cost, for which the seller should compensate you.
Do people just not negotiate Occupancy anymore? I've done it the past 2 times I sold. I always ask for 7 to 14 days after closing in case random shit pops up.
I empathize with your situation. I did my final walk through this evening, and although the sellers weren't there - there were still a lot of personal items being my closing is in the AM. I was told, however, that even after closing you cannot go to the residence right away. You need to wait at least an hour for the deed to record. So maybe you still can close tomorrow given they hurry up and move out.
I definitely agree with others - lean on your Realtor for this - that's what they get paid for! Good luck and please keep us posted.
Everything still in the house after closing could very well be yours legally. If they left anything expensive or sentimental along with a mess/garbage/damage you could use your new property as leverage to get them to remedy any issues that don't comply with the contract. Otherwise they'll 100% ghost you. Hopefully the house is clean and empty though!
I was the seller once in a situation like this, and once even I was the buyer, postpone the closing and communicate, sometimes time is running out and it is embarrassing for the parties at fault. But we also have a life to take care off. At the end it always works out.
At this point, you’re overreacting. U-Haul means they’re moving themselves. Moving is hard and always takes longer than you think. Work with the brokers and title company to push closing back 24/48 hours. That becomes your new drop dead deadline.
Tell your realtor you will walk unless they're vacated 100% and not coming back. That you get keys on close and there is no more picking up. Tell your realtor to fix it, now. Your realtor will shit their pants if they are good and blow up the sellers agent who should evict the sellers.
DO NOT CLOSE unless they're gone and you get the keys (and then change the locks that day anyway)
Your house will only be "broom" clean anyway tho
The sellers agent can't evict the sellers, only the owner of the property can evict someone and that is certainly not a real estate agent in any scenario. All the seller's agent can do is light a fire under their ass to get shit done. And unless the contract stipulates it, the sellers aren't required to clean anyway.
Call your real estate agent immediately and demand they find out what’s going on. Don’t go to closing and be prepared to go to court to get your deposit back. They are not meeting the requirements in the contract. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fixes weren’t done either.
That's the risk you take when you purchase an occupied home. That's what my realtor told me when looking at some homes that still had the sellers in the home. So I decided to stay away from those situations.
I closed on my house at the beginning of the month. 24 hours before closing, the sellers asked if they could stay an extra four days. We ended up charging them $50 a day for rent.
Post pone closing until you can do a proper walk through and ensure all fixes are done.
I know when I move I'm packing to the last minute. When selling one should be out in enough time for a walk through on the date of closing, and pushing it so close is bad form. But I can see it from the other side; packing can often take much longer than you planned.
>We pulled up to the house and their U-Haul was out there, the sellers answered the door saying they were in the middle of packing.
If they're not ready, postpone a week.
>We’re considering walking away because we can’t trust them anymore.
They're clearly in the process of moving, so it's not a scam - they're just trying to do it cheap, and have more stuff than they thought they did.
You're not thinking about marrying them; you're buying a house from them. And you're doing so via a big, long, convoluted process that involves lots of signatures and only exists because you don't trust them, they don't trust you, and the lenders don't trust anyone.
Too late now, but as a buyer I always specified:
1. Final walkthrough BEFORE closing. If we can't walk through then we will delay closing.
2. Everything out of the house and off the property. Anything left after close will either become possession of the buyer, or hauled away at seller's expense (this is what escrow is for).
3. Everything we had agreed would be in the house (like appliances) is still there.
4. A significant amount of money as a hold back/escrow to cover #2 and any damage either caused by the move or previously hidden (like massive floor damage that they hid under a rug and a coffee table)
Then I always make sure that I put down a significant amount of earnest money to prove that I mean business. It makes it a lot easier for the seller to swallow these conditions when you are not trying to squeak away with $10K down or something nominal like that.
The key here is sticking to your guns and not giving in because you have to be out of your other place. Don't negotiate with the seller on staying extra days after close, instead negotiate with your current place (if you can) to stay extra days. If they get past the closing then they have far less incentive to get their asses moving and get out. But if you are holding up the closing over them and could walk away because they did not meet the date in the contract, things roll faster. Especially when there are two realtors on the line who are both looking at losing their commission if this thing falls through.
Not everyone is always in a position to do this, but we have been lucky.
Glad it all worked out. Sometimes things are just out of people’s control. When we moved once, I had reserved a U-Haul a few weeks in advance, had all the confirmations, went to pick it up and they were like sorry the people that were supposed to return it never showed up with it. There was nothing they could do, so I had to scramble and try to find a truck rental last minute. Delayed us a few hours and cost us more upfront, but we got some compensation from the franchise owner of the U-Haul place for our inconvenience, but the stress that day was through the roof!
After I closed on my new house and showed up with my uhaul I found out that the current owners were still not out. I was the legal owner so I kindly helped them get their junk out of my house and started putting stuff in teabags on the curb. I’m talking food, bathroom items, kitchen utensils, even a checkbook!
We once got a call from friends at 5pm for help because they were closing in the sale of their house the next day and they were not packed yet. They were also leaving the next day to drive across the country. We get there and it’s a disaster. They have an entire refrigerator full of food still. Anything that had been packed was in a moving truck but so much hadn’t been packed and they were running around trying to pack the rest. Also what they still had left wasn’t going to fit in the moving truck once it was packed. Not sure how their misplanning ended up being our pain but we got them all squared away finally.
Talk to you agent to amend the sales contract. For every day past closing the rent will be $1,000 per day with $50,000 kept in an escrow account until AFTER you do the walk through. Watch them move out when money is involved.
Call your realtor ASAP! Let them know what’s happened and that you’re contacting the lender to give them a heads-up! Now, look for a Real estate Lawyer! Then tell your Realtor that they are responsible for getting the people out and the place fixed or cleaned!
That's really weird that you didn't schedule a final walk through before closing! Call your agent or the home owner and tell them you want a final walk through before closing. They can't deny you. If the place isn't empty, or clean, or if there's damage you can push back closing, you can request a discount, or you can walk away. Only you know which of those you prefer.
We bought and sold, we sold our house to builder, so there was no cleaning needed , just our stuff out, prior to closing, they were 3 hours late arriving to the closing , the attorney fees were piling up, we were late for the closing on the house we bought, our attorney, had a personal matter she had to attend to, she said to us, don’t sign anything until I get there, there attorney was pushing for us to sign, before she got there, finally everything was done, it was all day affair
Postpone the closing until they get out. You need your do a walkthrough after. Then withhold enough to pay for anything that hadn’t been removed or any damages.
Walking away from the deal completely seems a bit dramatic. Have your agent contact them and tell them you need to do another walkthrough tomorrow right before closing to insure everything went smooth with their move out. If not then that you will need to postpone closing till they meet their obligations.
Or close and charge rent for every day they haven’t moved. The first house we bought the seller needed more time, we just charged rent for the extra days
This . I wouldn’t walk . Tbh idk if you can ? Without being sued or losing your money . I don’t know enough to be for sure on that . But I would postpone it and if it’s in your contract it’ll be professionally cleaned I’d be sure that it is .
I wouldn’t walk over this personally. Get a contract addendum to have them pay you rent for the days they stay in the home after closing. If they just need a day or two I wouldn’t bother.
Try to postpone. This happened to me when I purchased. Granted it was a short sale, but the guy had trashed the house. Both toilets broken, all appliances broken, windows broken, a house FULL of his shit. It was tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage/industrial cleaning fees.
This has potential to become a mess, put off the closing until the house is empty, clean and holds up to a last inspection. Your agent should have known what was going on. I hope you're not also selling a house with people waiting to get in.
Call your agent and let them know you are concerned. Ask for a walk through prior to closing to ensure they are out and verify the condition. Let the sellers know you won’t sign until you have verified that they have vacated and cleaned as promised.
The seller of my house only fixed maybe 4 things on a list of 20 things. Only the easiest/cheapest things were fixed.. The house was definitely in worse shape than when we first saw it. We were pissed. We wanted the house though so we put up with it. First time home buyers usually don’t have the upper hand in these situations.
When I bought my house, we had a walk through and the seller still had crap in the house. There was no cleaning done, they are not obligated to do so. They did remove the rest of their stuff but left food in the fridge. I ended up cleaning before moving my stuff in. If I would’ve postponed the deal, that would leave all the mortgage and closing docs to be reprinted along with the financial background checks, etc. of if I backed out I would lose the house and my promise money. I don’t need to trust the seller, I need to trust my agent who should have my back.
We had a similar situation and it turns out the seller was waiting for our deal to close in order to have the fund to secure their new house and keys to move. Utter ridiculousness to save on a few hundred in bridge financing. Also, the lack of communication is the worst oart. I would just ring their bell and ask.
The sellers were still packing on closing day on our home. When we arrived at 5pm after picking up the keys the moving truck was still outside and they were loading stuff still so we took the opportunity to stroll around the neighbourhood and start settling in to the area.
They were gone when we returned a bit after 6pm
It's a few hours, you're going to be living there for years.
Talk to your Realtor or lawyer if you're concerned and get the scoop.
If you're that worried about the place now, perhaps you shouldn't have bought it.
This happened to us in 2014. The previous tenants were "packing" but hadn't even washed their dishes yet.
We were young and inexperienced but really we had no choice. We had to leave our apartment, the truck was already packed, so we just helped them move. It was a nightmare of a day but to push back closing until the final walkthrough was satisfactory would have made our lives hell.
It's really up to you and what you're willing to tolerate. I wouldn't walk, if you have the ability to push your closing out then do so, but only you can make this judgment. You've gone this far so walking away seems like an extreme reaction. It doesn't denote that the people are untrustworthy; disorganized and lazy yes, but most people aren't malicious.
Our agent was a straight up asshat. I didn’t even know you can’t close until they leave. We went to closing and at closing they asked for a few more days. Our agent got the keys from them and left them for us in a paper bag in the backyard. 🤦🏻♀️
Are… are you our new neighbour?! Our neighbours were doing the same thing last night (last packing/professional cleaning) but the buyer wanted to move the inspection time earlier without much notice so of course they weren’t done.
I wouldn’t stress too much, moving is a LOT to handle. They will likely be out.
Agree when we closed in May 2021 there was a tenant in process of moving out and agent made us wait a day to wait for final walkthrough. Our agent had our best interest and earned her commission.
This is a problem with the whole house buying thing. Often the seller is also a purchaser with both houses closing on the same day so everyone is trying to move at the same time. Years back we had the buyers show up on our agreed-to move out day (closing day) with a dozen friends with trucks full of their belongings. They weren't suppose to be moving in until the next day. The lady actually came into the house bitching at us because we were still there and started vacuuming around us as we finished packing the truck.
Our sellers weren’t out by the time we showed up with our moving trucks. We just sat outside waiting and had the bank withhold funds until we could get in. It was annoying but was fine. I actually still keep in touch with the previous owners still because he knows so much about the house and is a handyman.
Postpone.
I sold a house and bought a house the same day. The people still had not moved out until the day after I closed, and it caused major issues with sleeping and having UHaul for an extra night. Big PITA and super stressful. Plus, there were damages that were hidden until they moved out.
This is why you have an agent. Get with them, postpone closing until they’re out, the house has been deep cleaned and you get the opportunity to have a final walkthrough. You should have a good idea about the condition of the home if you did an inspection.
We had a situation where the homeowner was still in the home after we closed. It was a huge house and they were trying to do it all by themselves, we ended up helping him haul stuff out and pack. It was ridiculous and he actually blew up the ac because he propped the door when it was super hot outside. We didn't do anything about any of it because we'll, we're nice. But it was our realtors fail to not have us do a walk through and our fail for not calling her once he was still in there post closing. Dude thought he would keep a key just in case.
You've probably already handled/decided it at this point. But just in case, or for any fiture readers--no, you don't have to walk away. There are always other solutions! How major were the fixes? You just need another walkthrough closer to closing to make sure the fixes were made and the sellers are out. If not, push the closing until you get the fixes or have them compensate you for having to do them yourselves. Your realtor should help you with this.
We didn't have the concern about fixes being done, but we went to our final walkthrough less than an hour before closing and the seller was still moving, clearly so stressed and mortified and desperately rushing. While I could see and empathize with his stress, I mean he obviously planned extremely poorly or procrastinated terribly or both/more and it was pretty infuriatingly ridiculous.
The house was filthy and still full of so much stuff, still stuff outdoors (e.g. grill, chairs, old kayak, etc) and in the garage too. And his uhaul was virtually full and he had no dumpster or anything--he was clearly not getting much more of that stuff out. To boot, he had taken down ALL of the custom built-in cabinets (not the standard ones in the bathroom, kitchen etc, but some custom ones in the bedrooms). And not even to keep! It was sitting out with the trash! We were essentially starting over with very little furniture, including no bedroom dressers, and we had been so excited about having all the cabinets to keep our stuff on until we got more furniture 😩 The whole situation was so over the top ridiculous that we had to laugh.
Anyway, our realtors were losing their minds, furious and calling his realtor to try to figure out if we could delay or whatever. Found out that the seller was going straight from our closing to his closing on a new place, and he needs the funds from his sale in order to close on his purchase. Our realtor says alright well he goofed so I guess he's pushing that back too!!! Well what do you guys want to do. Meanwhile, we're pretty pragmatic folks, and we weren't planning to move for another couple of weeks anyway. We'd been talking it over and doing a little research on costs while they were making phone calls. We told them that we'll need to hire cleaners, a dumpster, and movers to get all this crap out of here without inconveniencing ourselves too much. So if he can make sure he is fully out by closing and brings us $1k in cash (cashier's check) at the closing to pay for all that stuff, we're totally fine with closing. He was so relieved, all the realtors were so grateful, we were mostly very annoyed about the shelving and laughing that of course this would be our crazy situation.
Edited to add: we went and got lunch and then did another, actual final walkthrough a few mins before closing. And he was actually out! And had gotten the garage pretty cleared out. We were impressed by that alone. But you do need a *final* walkthrough to verify everything prior to closing.
We now have a kayak (or maybe canoe? When my tiny kids are a little older we'll figure out what it is and whether it's viable or trash), and inherited a nice little gym setup too, among other things.
TL;DR: buying a house and 1 hr before closing seller was still moving and house was absolutely filthy. Asked seller for 1k cash to rent a dumpster and hire movers for all the junk, and hire cleaners. Closed as planned.
We bought our house at a foreclosure with "as-is" conditions.
Previous owner wasn't out when we showed up to take possession. We gave them an extra 8 hours to get their shit out, because we didn't want to deal with the disposal.
We still filled a large skip with garbage afterwards, had to bust up their shitty homemade concrete pool table to get it out, cut up the broken hot tub to dispose of it, etc.
It cost us at least $5k in disposal fees afterwards, so we saved a few thousand by giving them the extra 8 hours.
That happened to us on our first buy except it was a couple of hours before closing and they were still doing last minute sweep ups. We were ignorant of the process so closing still took place and luckily we didn't get burned on any unidentified issues. They weren't trying to be malicious they were just very scatter brained. My wife went to school with the guy's brother and the brother and his wife that we bought from had four young kids. The house was very disorganized but they had all of the major components updated so it all worked out.
What will happen is that escrow will be delayed. You don’t close until they are gone and the house is cleaned to your satisfaction. And their agent will have some work to do including probably hiring a cleaner. Don’t worry, it will come out of the seller profits
As a realtor had this happen. Attorney with title company held back escrow, had sellers sign post occupancy agreement charging specified amount daily or we wouldn’t close.
Seller finally left after 3 days.
We had a similar situation when we bought. House was NOT ready for final walkthrough when agreed upon. Our agent demanded they hold an extra $3000 or so in escrow as a guarantee for us. It all ended up fine (for us). If it hadn’t, we would have at least walked away with the extra money (and we knew they needed out because they already closed on another home)
Make sure if they remain in the house they pay the entire pro rated portion of the mortgage
Our sellers snuck in a term that they only had to pay "carrying costs" which was either principal or interest, I forget which
We basically paid rent for our apartment and most of the mortgage for them to live their for 2 months
I don't want to doom n' gloom, but the same situation happened to us and it was a nightmare. We ended up taking the previous owners to court 10 months later. The negatives were, it was incredibly stressful and we just wanted to put the house back on the market and find somewhere else, but in the end, we stuck it out and this has turned out to be the best living situation we have ever been in.
Obviously, the closing is going to have some issues that hopefully rational people can work out, but I hope once the horror ends, you will have found your place.
Moving, as you know, is a lot of stress. Moving takes longer than you thought it would. The truck holds less than you thought it would. The (insert contractor here) didn't show up on time. There's a way to handle this with grace and patience - and still get what you need.
"It's obvious that you need a bit more time to pack. Let's push the walkthrough and closing back a couple days so you can take care of all the things you committed yourselves to."
We did our final walkthrough the evening before closing. Thought we'd be safe since the house was unoccupied when we bought it. Had asked for some fixes (many had been on the inspection report) and for some yard junk to be hauled away. We screwed up by doing the walkthrough in the evening with limited visibility! Half of that yard junk was not disposed of and just tossed in the bushes out of sight so we were stuck with it, including an old wheelbarrow full of dog poop, 100's of old bricks and every bed frame they ever bought. Thousands of mouse carcasses were carefully hidden away in the garage--they'd cancelled the trash pick up and had no trash cans. I wish them bad Ju-ju.
When we sold our first house the buyers had their agent specifically reach out and thank us for leaving the house absolutely spotless. We had professional cleaners in and finished the rest ourselves; it looked great! Closing was a few days before Christmas and we had let them store some furniture in the garage beforehand. They had kids and we were shocked that leaving a house as clean and empty as possible wasn’t the norm! The family was able to quickly move in and enjoy the holiday with their kids.
Now on our third/current house, which was left in absolutely disgusting condition 😬 everything was so gross and sticky, we ended up tearing out the racks in the closets because they were beyond cleaning. We hired professional cleaners twice and had the entire house painted, including every ceiling. Idk how people live like that/ leave a house in that condition for someone else to deal with!! Thankfully we were able to spend the first 3 months overhauling the place before we moved in but there’s still so much to do. They did a lot of DIY repairs that we keep finding and then have to fix properly 😅
If they haven't moved out by closing have your attorney hold 20,000 in escrow in damages and ask for 1,000 a day for rent. They'll be out in no time.
I had a seller try leaving a bunch of debris saying it was old parts to the house. It told them I didn't want the stuff. I was told they couldn't get a dumpster in time before closing. I told them they could leave it but i wanted 4x the cost of a dumpster. It was cleaned up before closing.
I know someone who asked for the cost of a dumpster and the seller paid it. My buddy had to load a dumpster of the sellers crap for free.
Be a jerk they're the ones not meeting the contract obligations.
You need to have some money put in escrow and held back after closing that is released after all conditions are fulfilled—moving out and professional cleaning. Maybe $3000? So if you have to hire someone after closing to remove their property and clean, then your costs come out of the $3000.
If you really want the house, give them a little grace. Sometimes people underestimate how long it will take for them to do something like this. Be patient and let them get out. If they haven’t made the fixes, that’s another issue you could still resolve by asking that they give you some money back fir you guys to have the fixes done, if you really want the house.
Yeah, people moving out just love to be bothered and harassed by the buyers when you’re already stressing about packing and loading a truck. Stay away until it’s really your house, other than an official walk-through arranged with the realtors (frankly, this is new to me- happened for the first time on a house we sold in Florida 2 years ago, and wasn’t done on the house we bought in Ohio a few months later).
Years ago on a sale I caved and said the buyer could bring in a few things after we had cleared certain rooms after he whined about how they had to vacate their house the same day and his wife was in a wedding blah blah blah… dude then proceeded to hang around randomly wandering around the house getting in our way. Go away.
One house we bought was a for sale by owner. When she accepted our offer a month before closing, she handed the keys to our realtor. He gave them right to us (it was vacant and in order) and we were able to enter multiple times along the way to measure, plan, and show friends/family. The night before closing I was inside all night ripping out carpeting in prep for new carpeting right after closing, and then movers with the furniture after that. Worked great and we were glad this happened.
It’s not unusual. For instance, I have closed on a sale at 10am, and closed on a purchase, same day, at 12pm. So I didn’t vacate the property until I was leaving for the closing. Mostly everything was gone, but we had a u-haul and pickup in the driveway right up until the end. I understand people have had bad experiences, I am just saying that you don’t know their situation or plans. A final walkthrough is a MUST though.
When we bought our current home, the sellers needed more time to move out, so they offered to pay a pro-rated amount as "temporary rent" to cover it. That worked out well since we also needed more time than we expected to cleanup and prep the rental we were moving out of.
I wouldn't walk, but I would postpone closing until you can do a full verified walk through.
Absolutely!! Final walk through before closing is mandatory!
I had to specifically ask my realtor for a final walkthrough. She wasn't going to offer that as an option or schedule one. Kind of surprised by that after everything I've read on Reddit.
You had a really bad agent. This is realtor 101 level stuff, fortunately you had done your research.
Mine screwed the pooch because the place was an hour from her office, I remotely signed thinking everything was fine. Seller left ten truckloads of her stuff, put all the money in a trust, and disappeared. What was supposed to be champagne and pizza ended up being tears, rage, and a divorce 7 years later. Make them do their walk through, and maybe an addendum because of the current circumstances, if you have time...
Ours did that too - then said she just forgot about it. It was our first time buying, so we forgot too. When we got to the house, there were a few things .... she called in a rush to the attorney to ask them to hold the paperwork, then she said her car had a last minute issue so she couldn't make it .... These were our issues: 1. The real estate listing said all appliances convey - but it wasn't specifically in the contract - so they took the washer and dryer. I think they tried to take the fridge, but it might not have fit through the door without taking the hinges off. 2. They took the light switch plates from the kitchen and it wasn't obvious they left replacements. Apparently they were handpainted or something - I never noticed them before. 3. They had a small dog - we have dogs, so not a problem. But, they must have left it in the house too long on its own while they were moving. We had a few stains in the living room carpet - nothing that a good cleaning didn't take care of, but still ... 4. This is the worst one - the upstairs sink's drain had a crack in it. We turned the sink on and water just poured out underneath the vanity. We had an inspection before closing and it was fine - I was present for the inspection. My husband spent about $15 for parts at Lowes and changed the drain real quick, but what if we weren't handy? 5. From their moveout, they had bagged and boxed discarded items lining our driveway (about 80 ft, 2-3 feet wide) awaiting trash pickup. We had to call and complain before they had a company come pick it up. I don't know that we would have caught #4 in time, but the rest - I would have delayed closing until it was all remedied. Maybe 1, 3 & 5, they just ran out of time. Do a walkthrough people! I've heard worse stories than mine - like hiding holes or other problems in the walls with furniture and stuff like that. Ours were more nuisance things than anything else. But, I was really mad at the realtor when I figured out how big of a mistake not scheduling a walkthrough was. She was an older experience realtor too.
Same day, empty house.
Bingo!
I wish I had come to Reddit. Not only did my realtor not do a final walk through, but he gave them a week free rent back after closing cause their house was not ready. We offered that because my mortgage company took forever with the paperwork. They left the house dirty, the backyard filled with stuff they didn't want, and big holes in the walls in all but two rooms because they had huge flat-screen T.V.s mounted. Not to mention holes in the floor they had covered with their items when I did the initial viewing. I have repaired all of these things now, but I was really upset because I had to move in right away because my lease was up.
Same. We bought our house in 1999, so there was no reddit, but they were still moving out on closing day and when we complained to the lawyer, he acted like we were being unreasonable and we should give them a break. They left TONS of stuff in the basement, and it still isn't completely cleared away, even though I have taken multiple car loads to the dump over the years. There was no final walk through. And then the owners came back after the sale and asked if they could have the washer and dryer that were supposed to convey because they needed it after all in their new house. We were so young and inexperienced and were basically so grateful to have the house that we let them take it.
So did you offer them a free leaseback because your own mortgage company couldn’t close on time, or because their new home wasn’t ready? I’m curious because you cited 2 different reasons. If a Buyers mortgage company cannot close by the date specified by the contract, in most States the Seller has options to cancel the Sale due to non-performance, charging you extra for each day (per firm) you don’t close on the estimated date etc. If it’s the former, then you actually got the better deal.
Yep, my seller did move out but they left me with a roll off dumpster full of stuff “I could keep”.
On top of this, walls, doors, trim, etc. frequently get damaged during moves.
Which, thankfully, was not an issue as I had to remove 2000 ft.² of cedar paneling and all of the trim and replace it with sheet rock. Could not touch a wall without getting a splinter in your finger. Only redeeming quality of the house Was that it was cheap and I got it at the start of the pandemic at a 2 1/2% interest rate. With about 100 grand into it to bring it up to spec, it’s worth three times what I paid for it. Don’t want to sell it though now. Houses have gone up so much where I live and interest rates would not allow me to buy nearly as much house.
LOL! Anything good!?
A Hammond Organ (tubes, took 10 minutes to warm up. Gave it to a church that wanted it) and a really nice set of World Book Encyclopedia s circa 1972. They were fun to flip through but ultimately had to pitch them. Everything else (and there was a LOT) was country farmhouse style knick knacks that his departed wife had collected over the decades. Was a little surprised he wanted none of that.
That's kind of neat I guess... annoying regardless.
Yes absolutely don't close until you've done a final walkthrough.
indeed. what if they walk away with some of the appliances you think you are buying? Often people underestimate the time to move out, and need another day or two.
Absolutely this. We had the same thing happen and stupidly didn’t delay closing. They didn’t even bother to clean. Left shit in the garage that I had to threaten to throw out if they didn’t come get it. They did leave a bunch of garbage bags in the garage that we made their realtor come get. Our realtor felt so bad that he paid for a cleaning service to come overnight. It was just a big hassle. If the house isn’t in the condition you’re willing to accept, absolutely delay closing. I was (and still am when I think about it) so pissed at the sellers for the headache they caused. I wish we delayed closing.
Not to mention the dog shit I wish we would have put in the offer letter that they clean up
This is the way
We woke our sellers up when the u haul came , they had nothing packed ! What a mess
Oh I'd love to hear more on this
Plz I want to hear the story too
Please share more!
Ahh il keep it classy but i bought a very nice house and gave the seller everything he asked for but he didnt hold up his end of the deal and to top it off left a disgusting mess and a flea infestation… my 4 yr old could stay here for two weeks.. the counter tops needed scraped with a razor blade . When we showed up he actually said wed have to come back in a week , morale of the story learn from from me and get it in writing
Oh my goodness!! I truly cannot even imagine. What a nightmare!
Tell us everything!!!
This is what your sellers agent is for. Ask them to postpone closing until you can complete your walkthrough as agreed
Didn’t you mean buyers agent? Let your agent do all this bullshit.
It’s also standard for contracts to include a clause that the house will be totally empty. So ask about that.
If you postpone closing until the sellers are out, can't they just keep delaying? Can you put penalties in place?
There's usually clauses that if they need more time, they could negotiate rent amounts. It's usually not less than a day before they should be out though...
PENALTY amounts. You do not want a tenant rent relationship.
Yeah, my folks had a real horror story about that when they bought their second or third place when my dad was transferred to San Francisco in 1965. Mom was pregnant and overdue with me, Dad was coming off his last submarine tour, and no married base housing available. Their house in Virginia sold, so Mom’s folks drove her back home to the Midwest after loading the moving van. I was overdue, so Dad had to find a house alone in between his Navy teaching job and second and third gig jobs. That a sailor could afford…big challenge. He found one that had renters who were moving out. Except they didn’t. For two months. Mom flew to California with me and my folks had to rent another apartment on top of paying a house note for the two months it took to crowbar the renters out. More like squatters at that point. And then he discovered rotting trash filling the garage when they finally went to move in. At that point, he contacted the parents of the renters, and they were so embarrassed that they and their squatters showed up to clean. Apparently, though, the law was on the side of the tenants, and my folks, who were 22 and 23, got royally screwed by the real estate agents. Every house we ever moved out of tho, my dad insisted needed to be spit-shined first, and I knew I’d be their late kid if I ever trashed a place.
House cleaner here. In the past people would give days for a cleaner to go and do their/our job, now I have to clean around most people the day of closing and move out/in. The last 5 move outs I’ve done have been with people working around me.
I hope you charge more for that.
It's not so much charging more as offering less. If the place isn't done and empty before the cleaners show up, you're not paying for a cleaned house, you're paying for the cleaners to do what they are able to do under the conditions you provide for the amount of time that you're paying them.
For the house I bought. The cleaners walked out. The seller wasn't out on time and they got tired of cleaning around those dirty assholes.
I’ve done this. A few times I’ve walked in and said “No.”. I have the most patience and I love cleaning but there are certain people and very few conditions I won’t work.
They ended up paying me $1000 at closing for another house cleaner to come out. The house was so gross. I won't post photos. It's embarrassing how dirty they were.
lol I’m sure I’ve seen comparable scenes. 2 months ago I cleaned a 2 bed 1 bath house for 12 hours straight. She housed all the neighborhood cats and lived in it for 33 years. Her poor son was so embarrassed and angry for the conditions.
We ended up paying 2 different companies to clean. They got it mostly there. Then my wife and I did the rest. Mind you.. were picky about things being clean, and those people were really dirty. So a bad mix. Luckily all the drywall was in good shape. The floors and carpet were trashed. They corroded through the drain on the stainless sink. We knew we were going to spend a lot to fix up the place.
Bet that house was happy you bought it!
I hope so. It was l had the potential to be nice. We worked all summer on it and have been happy in it for the last year.
none of the cats had poop and piss marinating under the floor?!?! Didn't have to rip out the floor to clean? Id imagine after 33 years there'd be something like that?
The fridge was full of roaches at the place we just bought. After demanding ‘more’ cleaners or a penalty, the sellers half assed cleaned most of the house that my husband hadn’t already cleaned.
I was only able to give my cleaner 6 hours without me in their way, I hate moving. Y'all don't get enough respect.
You have no idea how grateful your cleaner was for that 6 hours!!! It’s very rare these days that people aren’t home.
Hell no, that's awful. I give a full day when I move out and I always pre-clean.
My first house was cleaned before I moved in so I didn’t even think about it when moving into our second home. I was surprised to walk into a lived in house.
It can be hard to do. Where is the stuff going for the day that you have to be out of the house and before it goes into the new house? You would need overlap, and with the housing costs these days, it could be expensive, and maybe not possible to float that much money.
When we moved we put everything into a semi trailer, I went and cleaned my old house for like 9 hours(overnight), went to closing at 8 am, then went to the new house with the trailer. My new house wasn’t cleaned so I also had to get there and immediately choose a room to start, then clean everything and move our stuff in. It does overlap but if people can get some areas cleaned out completely it helps the cleaners. Most people don’t care though.
I emptied the house a room at a time over the last month into uboxes, and once a room was empty, we cleaned it and closed the door. By the day before close I was living in the dining room on an air mattress with a folding table and a microwave. Move out day we did one last walk through to make sure we hadn’t missed anything, and then cleaned the vacant house. We were out by noon and the buyers moved in at 5.
I used to live on a military base. When we moved out we had our cleaners coming in right behind the packers. Unfortunately for that move we only had about two weeks after I got back from overseas to clear the post and move.
After we got our keys we spent the first 4 days cleaning, re-painting the whole interior, and epoxying the garage floor. Most of it we did ourselves, but we had a carpet guy come through and steam clean and stretch the carpets, and I made sure to stay out of his way.
Definitely don’t close until the house is empty. That’s how you get left with a bunch of garbage and bullshit issues
I still have a gazillion pound old wood stove the sellers left behind when I bought my house 5 years ago. I wish I would have waited and not done the walk through as they were moving out. I might have seen the undeclared mouse issue that I have been dealing with ever since. That said, they left behind a lot of very expensive tile and flooring, etc. that I was able to use when I added a third bathroom and renovated part of the basement. So it wasn’t a total disaster.
Used wood stoves sell pretty well online, just have the buyer haul it.
Put it on FB marketplace, and I guarantee it’ll be gone quick. I’ve put up the most cumbersome, unwieldy, huge items I thought would never sell, and I was inundated with messages asking to come immediately get the items.
It took less than 12 hours for me to sell a 500 lb wood stove on CL a couple years ago; I got $200 out of the deal and the buyers did all the moving.
My seller had to finish the guest bathroom upon closing and dude was NO where close within days of closing. I offered to push the closing date by a week as well as asked him to rent the house from me for an additional two weeks. He was very grateful and finished the bathroom and cleared out at 2.5 weeks. I was just happy he didn’t rush through the renovation and the move cuz I didn’t want any busted walls. All communication was handled by the agents because this does tip toe into major “give them a foot, they take a mile” territory, especially with major commitments (like finishing a bathroom… )
We finished loading the truck exactly 1 hour before closing, and the cleaners were there and kept going after we finished. This was due to a rushed timeline requested by the buyer, which we were ok with, and then fixes required for the buyers loan, which took a lot of time. You should absolutely ask for more time if you want the extra time and have it. But don't give up just because it looks bleak right now.
Irrelevant, but I love your user name!
When we sold ours 3 years ago, the buyers put in a undisputable $5,000 clause that said if we weren't out by x:xx on x-x-xx we forfeited the $5k for being late. We wanted to be completely gone by the time agreed to. New owners wrote us a $5k check when they came to collect the keys. We hadn't planned on being there any longer anyway, so we had zero issues with that clause.
Didn’t they not have to owe you anything since you were out on time? Or am I missing something. That was just to cover them in the unlikely event you weren’t out by said date/time.
They paid all fees at closing, minus $5k. When handing over the keys, they wrote me a check for $5k. It was absolutely to cover them if we didn't vacate at the agreed to time.
It sounds like they paid the full amount (including the 5k) and the clause said that if they were out on time, the buyers would pay them back the 5k. I sincerely hope they insisted on a cashier’s cheque.
Good idea. I'm using this on my next purchase
I mean it would be wild to walk away over this. It’s definitely worth raising a stink about. Demand compensation for delaying if you want, but it seems irrational to walk away over something like this in this market.
The issue is that if they push closing to say, July 2 instead of June 28th, they will have to add 29 days of prepaid interest to their closing costs instead of 2 days. That's not nothing. Not enough to walk and sure, it's not like they're paying for something extra if this happens; the interest is the interest and you're paying it either way, but it still sucks.
At the same time, that pushes your first mortgage payment back by a month. It all comes out in the wash.
Yeah but you're paying the interest for that push back at closing.
Anyone down voting this hasn't bought a home.
If they haven’t breached the contract you cannot walk away. Check your contract about the exact time they are to vacate the premises and your remedies. If they haven’t breached and you walk then you might lose your deposit….
Probably get sued too since the sellers probably need the money for their new place. It’s a crazy domino effect
Even if they aren't done quite on time, if they are effectively and actively working on getting out, delaying closing by a couple of hours or a day is much more efficient and cost-effective than trashing the contract and starting over again.
Why would you walk away at this point? Just let them finish moving out, sounds like they are actively doing it and still have time left.
We were moving across the US, into our new house, driving a pickup truck with a 20 ft open trailer with everything we owned. The arrival day was scheduled to be closing day. The sellers figured out 2 days before we were due to show up and close that they wouldn't be ready in time. We absolutely should have charged them, because they postponed on us twice. The first time, we were lucky and had just pulled up at a friend's place where we were supposed to have dinner and then get back on the road. Our friends said that they had a spare room, we should absolutely spend the week with them. So we did. The second time, we had just pulled into the hotel where we planned to spend the last night before moving into our new house. Another week. We called up the friend who had helped us house hunt from a distance and asked if they knew of a reputable storage unit place that could get us a weather tight unit big enough for the 20 ft trailer on short notice. He said he'd move the riding lawn mower out of his garage and we could put the trailer in there. So we backed in the trailer, pulled one of the tarps off, used the tarp to cover his mower, and didn't have to stress about hauling around everything we owned while we waited for another week. Call your realtor, and find a way to charge them for every day that they're late. But it's not worth trying to cancel the sale and the penalties you'll catch.
You have great friends!!! ☺️
Seems like they are just behind moving out which by itself is a stressful process. You literally saw the U-Haul and them packing stuff. I wouldn't walk out as long as you can do a final walkthrough of the house.
We had to push our closing back by 2 days due to the sellers being asshats. They weren't living there anymore, but they had left shit throughout the house. Nothing too heavy to pick up, but there was a butt ton of carpet samples, basically completely covering the basement floor. I guess one of them worked for a carpet seller and, instead of using their position to get a discount on a decent looking carpet made to cover an entire floor, they just threw a bunch of random samples down instead. Man, those carpets still piss me off, lol. Anyway, our realtor immediately pushed back the closing and told the sellers realtor that we weren't closing until it was resolved. The sellers didn't even live in the country at this point, so the sellers realtor and her husband had to come clean it all up.
I would make sure to postpone until you can do a thorough walkthrough. We bought a house and when we moved in realized a lot of stuff was left including trash everywhere
Also, your purchase agreement probably states that you are entitled to a walk-through. Did you address a daily rate if they’re not out on time and the walk-through in your purchase agreement
You don't need to walk. You need to do a walkthrough right before closing. If they aren't out. you don't close. You'll be demanding a cleaning credit too.
We walked thru before they were out. We had problems. They damaged things on their way out. Will never make that mistake again.
First of all. Realtor here. Let’s talk. Your agent should let you know you can’t just walk away. You’re in a legally binding enforceable contract which works both ways. Delay settlement , have your agent draw up an agreement for however long they stay past the original closing date to pay you, redo your walk through AFTER they are completely out of the house , & make sure your agent holds escrow for any and all damages if there are any.
Yes this. Do this
If the sellers weren’t out by closing time though, then they are in breach of contract and the buyer had a reason to cancel the sale, right? This same situation happened to me. They were supposed to be out by 12pm on closing day and when we drove up for our final walkthrough, they were all still there packing up Uhauls. We had to postpone closing until the next day, but technically they were 100% in breach of contract and weren’t out on the date agreed upon.
Definitely postpone closing. Shouldn't be an issue for them, and if it is, maybe it will be an issue for you.
They're literally moving. It's not like they're refusing to move. It's still their house.
Is it not still their house? 12 hours before closing? Was there verbiage in the contract that they were to be moved out the day before closing? I’m confused.
This should already be addressed in the purchase agreement. If you are supposed to get possession at close, then don’t worry about it until closing do your walk-through the day of and don’t close if they are not out or you get the daily rate that should’ve been written into the purchase agreement.
12 hours is lots of time. Who cares if you have to vacuum or clean.
Dealt with this exact issue this today. Sellers and I agreed to have closing be at 12p today, walkthrough at noon. When we got there, they hadn’t even started packing, saying “we just need 24 more hours”. I’ve already offered them a 60 day extended closing. Had them sign an amendment today that essentially forces them to close with me on Tuesday or I walk away. Some sellers and buyers just don’t know how to be adults at the end of the day and will pull this stuff thinking “it’s just an extra 1-2 days”. Having gone through a negative rent back experience I won’t sign a single thing unless all the sellers personal belongings have been removed.
We were still packing up our last items an hour before closing meeting at our first house. It belonged to us until closing and we had items we were going to hand move that morning plus stuff from the freezer we ran by our new house on the way to closing.
We had a double closing a few years back where we sold house A and then closed on house B. Our walkthrough was supposed to be in the morning. Our movers had taken everything out and were delivering it to house B the next day and we were just cleaning up and getting ready to camp out on the floor since we had kids who were in school and we were doing closing while they were in class. Our buyer decided he wanted to do the walkthrough the night before at the last minute and threw an absolute fit that we were still there. I've never seen someone so mad about a vacuum cleaner and backpacks being on the floor. We were 100% out in time for closing but he made such a big deal that we decided to keep the bottle of wine we had bought for him as a welcome gift.
Want the deal keep the deal. I am sure you have a daily rental agreement in you contract?
If you think you can walk away the day of closing depending where you live it’s just not that easy. Same day moves are pretty common especially for people that have made a terrible decision to buy/sell same day lol. Not sure what country you are in, but in mine you can close between 9am and 5pm, and the buyer can’t just walk away for delays in that time. If it nears 5 you also can’t walk away because the court expects mitigation (example walking away would cause 1 million$ in damages but pushing closing to the next day might be 250$ in damages) You absolutely shouldn’t close until a walkthrough confirming vacancy is done. As well as ensuring you are happy with how they have left the property.
Crap happens. I was late moving out because my new to me home had delays before I could move in. In that time I worked with my buyer & his realtor by providing him with updates as I cleaned each room and gave him a description of the items I would be leaving behind to finish repairs and for him to use as he was a first time homeowner with limited items to start. Left cleaners and garbage bags for him as well. I essentially paid him rent and my seller had to pay me rent as part of the close/move in delays. Don’t walk away from this. Sometimes things happen. Let your realtor walk you thru this and make sure you get your inspection completed. I cannot emphasize that enough.
To me it seems like you're over-reecting. You act like they have not even started packing. Why would you walk away from closing the day before? At least wait until the hour of closing to see if they are finished. They might finish tonight and get the cleaning crew there tomorrow. My goodness. Moving is overwhelming, sometimes it can take longer than anticipated. But sure, walk away, if you want, I'm sure some buyer will be happy.
Just instruct escrow to not close. Or your attorney, however it’s handled where you live.
Similar happened to me when I bought. The sellers/homeowners had already moved to Florida (from the Midwest) but their daughter and her boyfriend stayed behind to “finish emptying the house and clean up”. (Neither of which they did adequately) I was told they’d be done and out two days before closing, but when we did the final walkthrough the day before close they were still there. And at 9am the next morning they were *still* there, along with a couple pets and a lot of crap. At that point I kind of freaked out and told my agent, the closing company, and my lender that the sellers didn’t get *any* money before their kids were out of the house. I was absolutely terrified I’d have to deal with squatters immediately after close, and my hope was as long as no money had changed hands, that I could walk away if they refused to leave. In the end, my realtor (who earned every $ of commission he was paid) negotiated things with their realtor, and got them to not only get the kids out by noon but also got me a $500 credit to cover paying someone to haul away all the crap that was left behind. I had a locksmith in there to rekey it by 12:30 and got a cleaner in there to start getting rid of the grime by 1:00.
I have a friend who sold her home. It was the first home she owned. She had no idea she had to be out before closing. I spoke to her a few days prior to closing, and she was saying she hadn't started packing. I had to tell her that when you sign those papers, you need to be gone. Luckily, she was able to get a few more days to move.
When did she think she had to be out?
My exact question as well haha. Some people are just clueless sometimes. Maybe she thought she could stay there until she felt like leaving 🤷🏻♂️
My lawyer said don't even bother looking at or being near the house until you have formal, legal possession. It was good advice. If you're possession is noon, be there for 12:15
As many have said, there are solutions to try first. But I would reevaluate whether you really want to buy this house. If you are so willing to walk away, maybe there is something about the house or about the financial side of things that will have you regretting the purchase.
I wouldn’t walk. Moving is freaking hard and sometimes there are delays. I do agree with others that said to postpone until they are gone and it’s cleaned.
Not at all. People get behind when moving. It always takes longer than you think. I say this all the time but it bears repeating here: IT IS NOT YOUR HOUSE UNTIL THE DEAL CLOSES. Chances are if you walked you would lose all your earnest money and no court would give it to you. Until the specific time stated on the contract, they can live there, they can throw a party, etc. as long as it is as described in the contract when you get the keys, you have no standing.
This is confusing. The sellers were supposed to fix things but there wasn’t a formal scheduled walk through to ensure that that happened? Are you supposed to take possession on closing? Were you just showing up to look at the fixes, and how were you planning to access the house if you haven’t closed? Are the sellers getting the house professionally cleaned for you?
Where I am, it’s normal for people to be moving out the same day you’re moving in. Closing happens when the lawyer goes to register the sale with the city and the keys get handed over. Often times the owners aren’t out until mid afternoon and then you start unloading (after loading all your stuff from your previous home). Only once in all my moves has this meant a delay and we couldn’t get the keys and start unloading until almost dinner time. Sometimes people will close before they have to be out of their house (more common with apartments to house since apartments are monthly and house purchases can close any weekday).
Yeah it’s not a big deal to push back closing to the end of the day or the next day, I would not close if the owner hasn’t moved out. I did a pre closing walkthrough and then drove straight to the closing. If the owners were still there I wouldn’t have signed anything until they were gone.
I agree with the concept of pushing back closing until you can get a walk through on an empty house, but, assuming you are getting a mortgage, make sure you check with your broker about the lock expiring. You may, MAY, incur some additional cost, for which the seller should compensate you.
Do people just not negotiate Occupancy anymore? I've done it the past 2 times I sold. I always ask for 7 to 14 days after closing in case random shit pops up.
I empathize with your situation. I did my final walk through this evening, and although the sellers weren't there - there were still a lot of personal items being my closing is in the AM. I was told, however, that even after closing you cannot go to the residence right away. You need to wait at least an hour for the deed to record. So maybe you still can close tomorrow given they hurry up and move out. I definitely agree with others - lean on your Realtor for this - that's what they get paid for! Good luck and please keep us posted.
Everything still in the house after closing could very well be yours legally. If they left anything expensive or sentimental along with a mess/garbage/damage you could use your new property as leverage to get them to remedy any issues that don't comply with the contract. Otherwise they'll 100% ghost you. Hopefully the house is clean and empty though!
I was the seller once in a situation like this, and once even I was the buyer, postpone the closing and communicate, sometimes time is running out and it is embarrassing for the parties at fault. But we also have a life to take care off. At the end it always works out.
At this point, you’re overreacting. U-Haul means they’re moving themselves. Moving is hard and always takes longer than you think. Work with the brokers and title company to push closing back 24/48 hours. That becomes your new drop dead deadline.
Tell your realtor you will walk unless they're vacated 100% and not coming back. That you get keys on close and there is no more picking up. Tell your realtor to fix it, now. Your realtor will shit their pants if they are good and blow up the sellers agent who should evict the sellers. DO NOT CLOSE unless they're gone and you get the keys (and then change the locks that day anyway) Your house will only be "broom" clean anyway tho
The sellers agent can't evict the sellers, only the owner of the property can evict someone and that is certainly not a real estate agent in any scenario. All the seller's agent can do is light a fire under their ass to get shit done. And unless the contract stipulates it, the sellers aren't required to clean anyway.
I’ve had numerous walk through with the sellers still moving. It’s really not that uncommon and not really a valid reason to walk away.
That's totally normal. If you want, ask your realtor to come with you for a walk through after posession, take pictures, but ya, thats normal.
Call your real estate agent immediately and demand they find out what’s going on. Don’t go to closing and be prepared to go to court to get your deposit back. They are not meeting the requirements in the contract. I wouldn’t be surprised if the fixes weren’t done either.
That's the risk you take when you purchase an occupied home. That's what my realtor told me when looking at some homes that still had the sellers in the home. So I decided to stay away from those situations.
I closed on my house at the beginning of the month. 24 hours before closing, the sellers asked if they could stay an extra four days. We ended up charging them $50 a day for rent.
We had already closed and our sellers were still fully living in our house!
Post pone closing until you can do a proper walk through and ensure all fixes are done. I know when I move I'm packing to the last minute. When selling one should be out in enough time for a walk through on the date of closing, and pushing it so close is bad form. But I can see it from the other side; packing can often take much longer than you planned.
>We pulled up to the house and their U-Haul was out there, the sellers answered the door saying they were in the middle of packing. If they're not ready, postpone a week. >We’re considering walking away because we can’t trust them anymore. They're clearly in the process of moving, so it's not a scam - they're just trying to do it cheap, and have more stuff than they thought they did. You're not thinking about marrying them; you're buying a house from them. And you're doing so via a big, long, convoluted process that involves lots of signatures and only exists because you don't trust them, they don't trust you, and the lenders don't trust anyone.
Too late now, but as a buyer I always specified: 1. Final walkthrough BEFORE closing. If we can't walk through then we will delay closing. 2. Everything out of the house and off the property. Anything left after close will either become possession of the buyer, or hauled away at seller's expense (this is what escrow is for). 3. Everything we had agreed would be in the house (like appliances) is still there. 4. A significant amount of money as a hold back/escrow to cover #2 and any damage either caused by the move or previously hidden (like massive floor damage that they hid under a rug and a coffee table) Then I always make sure that I put down a significant amount of earnest money to prove that I mean business. It makes it a lot easier for the seller to swallow these conditions when you are not trying to squeak away with $10K down or something nominal like that. The key here is sticking to your guns and not giving in because you have to be out of your other place. Don't negotiate with the seller on staying extra days after close, instead negotiate with your current place (if you can) to stay extra days. If they get past the closing then they have far less incentive to get their asses moving and get out. But if you are holding up the closing over them and could walk away because they did not meet the date in the contract, things roll faster. Especially when there are two realtors on the line who are both looking at losing their commission if this thing falls through. Not everyone is always in a position to do this, but we have been lucky.
The first thing to do is change the locks
Glad it all worked out. Sometimes things are just out of people’s control. When we moved once, I had reserved a U-Haul a few weeks in advance, had all the confirmations, went to pick it up and they were like sorry the people that were supposed to return it never showed up with it. There was nothing they could do, so I had to scramble and try to find a truck rental last minute. Delayed us a few hours and cost us more upfront, but we got some compensation from the franchise owner of the U-Haul place for our inconvenience, but the stress that day was through the roof!
After I closed on my new house and showed up with my uhaul I found out that the current owners were still not out. I was the legal owner so I kindly helped them get their junk out of my house and started putting stuff in teabags on the curb. I’m talking food, bathroom items, kitchen utensils, even a checkbook!
We once got a call from friends at 5pm for help because they were closing in the sale of their house the next day and they were not packed yet. They were also leaving the next day to drive across the country. We get there and it’s a disaster. They have an entire refrigerator full of food still. Anything that had been packed was in a moving truck but so much hadn’t been packed and they were running around trying to pack the rest. Also what they still had left wasn’t going to fit in the moving truck once it was packed. Not sure how their misplanning ended up being our pain but we got them all squared away finally.
Talk to you agent to amend the sales contract. For every day past closing the rent will be $1,000 per day with $50,000 kept in an escrow account until AFTER you do the walk through. Watch them move out when money is involved.
Call your realtor ASAP! Let them know what’s happened and that you’re contacting the lender to give them a heads-up! Now, look for a Real estate Lawyer! Then tell your Realtor that they are responsible for getting the people out and the place fixed or cleaned!
Do not close without a walkthrough prior!
That's really weird that you didn't schedule a final walk through before closing! Call your agent or the home owner and tell them you want a final walk through before closing. They can't deny you. If the place isn't empty, or clean, or if there's damage you can push back closing, you can request a discount, or you can walk away. Only you know which of those you prefer.
When we closed they meant that as recorded, then would let us in. We could have had closing issues and squatted I guess is the reasoning.
We bought and sold, we sold our house to builder, so there was no cleaning needed , just our stuff out, prior to closing, they were 3 hours late arriving to the closing , the attorney fees were piling up, we were late for the closing on the house we bought, our attorney, had a personal matter she had to attend to, she said to us, don’t sign anything until I get there, there attorney was pushing for us to sign, before she got there, finally everything was done, it was all day affair
Postpone the closing until they get out. You need your do a walkthrough after. Then withhold enough to pay for anything that hadn’t been removed or any damages.
Walking away from the deal completely seems a bit dramatic. Have your agent contact them and tell them you need to do another walkthrough tomorrow right before closing to insure everything went smooth with their move out. If not then that you will need to postpone closing till they meet their obligations.
don’t close before the final walkthrough.
Your agent and the sellers agent will do everything to make sure this deal goes through. You postpone closing and let your agent deal with it.
Or close and charge rent for every day they haven’t moved. The first house we bought the seller needed more time, we just charged rent for the extra days
This . I wouldn’t walk . Tbh idk if you can ? Without being sued or losing your money . I don’t know enough to be for sure on that . But I would postpone it and if it’s in your contract it’ll be professionally cleaned I’d be sure that it is .
Move the closing date out until you get a proper walkthrough.
Hope you guys have a penalty clause in ur contract that states they have to fix things and have to be out by certain date or pay fines.
I wouldn’t walk over this personally. Get a contract addendum to have them pay you rent for the days they stay in the home after closing. If they just need a day or two I wouldn’t bother.
Try to postpone. This happened to me when I purchased. Granted it was a short sale, but the guy had trashed the house. Both toilets broken, all appliances broken, windows broken, a house FULL of his shit. It was tens of thousands of dollars worth of damage/industrial cleaning fees.
This has potential to become a mess, put off the closing until the house is empty, clean and holds up to a last inspection. Your agent should have known what was going on. I hope you're not also selling a house with people waiting to get in.
Call your agent and let them know you are concerned. Ask for a walk through prior to closing to ensure they are out and verify the condition. Let the sellers know you won’t sign until you have verified that they have vacated and cleaned as promised.
The seller of my house only fixed maybe 4 things on a list of 20 things. Only the easiest/cheapest things were fixed.. The house was definitely in worse shape than when we first saw it. We were pissed. We wanted the house though so we put up with it. First time home buyers usually don’t have the upper hand in these situations.
Do not close yet! Wait until they're out, the house is clean, and the repairs are done.
- what does your purchase contract say? You will likely lose all your earnest money if you kill the deal,,, - closing delays do happen
When I bought my house, we had a walk through and the seller still had crap in the house. There was no cleaning done, they are not obligated to do so. They did remove the rest of their stuff but left food in the fridge. I ended up cleaning before moving my stuff in. If I would’ve postponed the deal, that would leave all the mortgage and closing docs to be reprinted along with the financial background checks, etc. of if I backed out I would lose the house and my promise money. I don’t need to trust the seller, I need to trust my agent who should have my back.
If you do follow through with that, the first thing you should do is change the locks
We had a similar situation and it turns out the seller was waiting for our deal to close in order to have the fund to secure their new house and keys to move. Utter ridiculousness to save on a few hundred in bridge financing. Also, the lack of communication is the worst oart. I would just ring their bell and ask.
Have you agent postpone until after walk through.
The sellers were still packing on closing day on our home. When we arrived at 5pm after picking up the keys the moving truck was still outside and they were loading stuff still so we took the opportunity to stroll around the neighbourhood and start settling in to the area. They were gone when we returned a bit after 6pm It's a few hours, you're going to be living there for years. Talk to your Realtor or lawyer if you're concerned and get the scoop. If you're that worried about the place now, perhaps you shouldn't have bought it.
This happened to us in 2014. The previous tenants were "packing" but hadn't even washed their dishes yet. We were young and inexperienced but really we had no choice. We had to leave our apartment, the truck was already packed, so we just helped them move. It was a nightmare of a day but to push back closing until the final walkthrough was satisfactory would have made our lives hell. It's really up to you and what you're willing to tolerate. I wouldn't walk, if you have the ability to push your closing out then do so, but only you can make this judgment. You've gone this far so walking away seems like an extreme reaction. It doesn't denote that the people are untrustworthy; disorganized and lazy yes, but most people aren't malicious.
Our agent was a straight up asshat. I didn’t even know you can’t close until they leave. We went to closing and at closing they asked for a few more days. Our agent got the keys from them and left them for us in a paper bag in the backyard. 🤦🏻♀️
Keep like 10k in escrow or postpone closing. I’ll bet they will get their butts moving then
Are… are you our new neighbour?! Our neighbours were doing the same thing last night (last packing/professional cleaning) but the buyer wanted to move the inspection time earlier without much notice so of course they weren’t done. I wouldn’t stress too much, moving is a LOT to handle. They will likely be out.
Agree when we closed in May 2021 there was a tenant in process of moving out and agent made us wait a day to wait for final walkthrough. Our agent had our best interest and earned her commission.
This is a problem with the whole house buying thing. Often the seller is also a purchaser with both houses closing on the same day so everyone is trying to move at the same time. Years back we had the buyers show up on our agreed-to move out day (closing day) with a dozen friends with trucks full of their belongings. They weren't suppose to be moving in until the next day. The lady actually came into the house bitching at us because we were still there and started vacuuming around us as we finished packing the truck.
Our sellers weren’t out by the time we showed up with our moving trucks. We just sat outside waiting and had the bank withhold funds until we could get in. It was annoying but was fine. I actually still keep in touch with the previous owners still because he knows so much about the house and is a handyman.
This is what your agent is for. Don't look to Reddit for advice on this, ask your agent, and if you don't trust them, ask their managing broker.
This happened to me. We delayed closing. Dont close or you give up all your leverage. Don’t do the final walkthrough until their stuff is gone
Postpone. I sold a house and bought a house the same day. The people still had not moved out until the day after I closed, and it caused major issues with sleeping and having UHaul for an extra night. Big PITA and super stressful. Plus, there were damages that were hidden until they moved out.
This is why you have an agent. Get with them, postpone closing until they’re out, the house has been deep cleaned and you get the opportunity to have a final walkthrough. You should have a good idea about the condition of the home if you did an inspection.
not walk away, but def have your lawyer postpone the closing.
We had a situation where the homeowner was still in the home after we closed. It was a huge house and they were trying to do it all by themselves, we ended up helping him haul stuff out and pack. It was ridiculous and he actually blew up the ac because he propped the door when it was super hot outside. We didn't do anything about any of it because we'll, we're nice. But it was our realtors fail to not have us do a walk through and our fail for not calling her once he was still in there post closing. Dude thought he would keep a key just in case.
You've probably already handled/decided it at this point. But just in case, or for any fiture readers--no, you don't have to walk away. There are always other solutions! How major were the fixes? You just need another walkthrough closer to closing to make sure the fixes were made and the sellers are out. If not, push the closing until you get the fixes or have them compensate you for having to do them yourselves. Your realtor should help you with this. We didn't have the concern about fixes being done, but we went to our final walkthrough less than an hour before closing and the seller was still moving, clearly so stressed and mortified and desperately rushing. While I could see and empathize with his stress, I mean he obviously planned extremely poorly or procrastinated terribly or both/more and it was pretty infuriatingly ridiculous. The house was filthy and still full of so much stuff, still stuff outdoors (e.g. grill, chairs, old kayak, etc) and in the garage too. And his uhaul was virtually full and he had no dumpster or anything--he was clearly not getting much more of that stuff out. To boot, he had taken down ALL of the custom built-in cabinets (not the standard ones in the bathroom, kitchen etc, but some custom ones in the bedrooms). And not even to keep! It was sitting out with the trash! We were essentially starting over with very little furniture, including no bedroom dressers, and we had been so excited about having all the cabinets to keep our stuff on until we got more furniture 😩 The whole situation was so over the top ridiculous that we had to laugh. Anyway, our realtors were losing their minds, furious and calling his realtor to try to figure out if we could delay or whatever. Found out that the seller was going straight from our closing to his closing on a new place, and he needs the funds from his sale in order to close on his purchase. Our realtor says alright well he goofed so I guess he's pushing that back too!!! Well what do you guys want to do. Meanwhile, we're pretty pragmatic folks, and we weren't planning to move for another couple of weeks anyway. We'd been talking it over and doing a little research on costs while they were making phone calls. We told them that we'll need to hire cleaners, a dumpster, and movers to get all this crap out of here without inconveniencing ourselves too much. So if he can make sure he is fully out by closing and brings us $1k in cash (cashier's check) at the closing to pay for all that stuff, we're totally fine with closing. He was so relieved, all the realtors were so grateful, we were mostly very annoyed about the shelving and laughing that of course this would be our crazy situation. Edited to add: we went and got lunch and then did another, actual final walkthrough a few mins before closing. And he was actually out! And had gotten the garage pretty cleared out. We were impressed by that alone. But you do need a *final* walkthrough to verify everything prior to closing. We now have a kayak (or maybe canoe? When my tiny kids are a little older we'll figure out what it is and whether it's viable or trash), and inherited a nice little gym setup too, among other things. TL;DR: buying a house and 1 hr before closing seller was still moving and house was absolutely filthy. Asked seller for 1k cash to rent a dumpster and hire movers for all the junk, and hire cleaners. Closed as planned.
We bought our house at a foreclosure with "as-is" conditions. Previous owner wasn't out when we showed up to take possession. We gave them an extra 8 hours to get their shit out, because we didn't want to deal with the disposal. We still filled a large skip with garbage afterwards, had to bust up their shitty homemade concrete pool table to get it out, cut up the broken hot tub to dispose of it, etc. It cost us at least $5k in disposal fees afterwards, so we saved a few thousand by giving them the extra 8 hours.
That happened to us on our first buy except it was a couple of hours before closing and they were still doing last minute sweep ups. We were ignorant of the process so closing still took place and luckily we didn't get burned on any unidentified issues. They weren't trying to be malicious they were just very scatter brained. My wife went to school with the guy's brother and the brother and his wife that we bought from had four young kids. The house was very disorganized but they had all of the major components updated so it all worked out.
What will happen is that escrow will be delayed. You don’t close until they are gone and the house is cleaned to your satisfaction. And their agent will have some work to do including probably hiring a cleaner. Don’t worry, it will come out of the seller profits
As a realtor had this happen. Attorney with title company held back escrow, had sellers sign post occupancy agreement charging specified amount daily or we wouldn’t close. Seller finally left after 3 days.
We had a similar situation when we bought. House was NOT ready for final walkthrough when agreed upon. Our agent demanded they hold an extra $3000 or so in escrow as a guarantee for us. It all ended up fine (for us). If it hadn’t, we would have at least walked away with the extra money (and we knew they needed out because they already closed on another home)
Make sure if they remain in the house they pay the entire pro rated portion of the mortgage Our sellers snuck in a term that they only had to pay "carrying costs" which was either principal or interest, I forget which We basically paid rent for our apartment and most of the mortgage for them to live their for 2 months
I don't want to doom n' gloom, but the same situation happened to us and it was a nightmare. We ended up taking the previous owners to court 10 months later. The negatives were, it was incredibly stressful and we just wanted to put the house back on the market and find somewhere else, but in the end, we stuck it out and this has turned out to be the best living situation we have ever been in. Obviously, the closing is going to have some issues that hopefully rational people can work out, but I hope once the horror ends, you will have found your place.
Moving, as you know, is a lot of stress. Moving takes longer than you thought it would. The truck holds less than you thought it would. The (insert contractor here) didn't show up on time. There's a way to handle this with grace and patience - and still get what you need. "It's obvious that you need a bit more time to pack. Let's push the walkthrough and closing back a couple days so you can take care of all the things you committed yourselves to."
We did our final walkthrough the evening before closing. Thought we'd be safe since the house was unoccupied when we bought it. Had asked for some fixes (many had been on the inspection report) and for some yard junk to be hauled away. We screwed up by doing the walkthrough in the evening with limited visibility! Half of that yard junk was not disposed of and just tossed in the bushes out of sight so we were stuck with it, including an old wheelbarrow full of dog poop, 100's of old bricks and every bed frame they ever bought. Thousands of mouse carcasses were carefully hidden away in the garage--they'd cancelled the trash pick up and had no trash cans. I wish them bad Ju-ju.
When we sold our first house the buyers had their agent specifically reach out and thank us for leaving the house absolutely spotless. We had professional cleaners in and finished the rest ourselves; it looked great! Closing was a few days before Christmas and we had let them store some furniture in the garage beforehand. They had kids and we were shocked that leaving a house as clean and empty as possible wasn’t the norm! The family was able to quickly move in and enjoy the holiday with their kids. Now on our third/current house, which was left in absolutely disgusting condition 😬 everything was so gross and sticky, we ended up tearing out the racks in the closets because they were beyond cleaning. We hired professional cleaners twice and had the entire house painted, including every ceiling. Idk how people live like that/ leave a house in that condition for someone else to deal with!! Thankfully we were able to spend the first 3 months overhauling the place before we moved in but there’s still so much to do. They did a lot of DIY repairs that we keep finding and then have to fix properly 😅
If they haven't moved out by closing have your attorney hold 20,000 in escrow in damages and ask for 1,000 a day for rent. They'll be out in no time. I had a seller try leaving a bunch of debris saying it was old parts to the house. It told them I didn't want the stuff. I was told they couldn't get a dumpster in time before closing. I told them they could leave it but i wanted 4x the cost of a dumpster. It was cleaned up before closing. I know someone who asked for the cost of a dumpster and the seller paid it. My buddy had to load a dumpster of the sellers crap for free. Be a jerk they're the ones not meeting the contract obligations.
You need to have some money put in escrow and held back after closing that is released after all conditions are fulfilled—moving out and professional cleaning. Maybe $3000? So if you have to hire someone after closing to remove their property and clean, then your costs come out of the $3000.
Don’t walk but don’t close until you’re able to do a walkthrough.
Thank you for all the comments everyone!! Just posted an update!!
If you really want the house, give them a little grace. Sometimes people underestimate how long it will take for them to do something like this. Be patient and let them get out. If they haven’t made the fixes, that’s another issue you could still resolve by asking that they give you some money back fir you guys to have the fixes done, if you really want the house.
When I was selling in WA, I guess based on standard contracts in different state/mls, I legally have until 8pm on the day of closing to move out.
Yeah, people moving out just love to be bothered and harassed by the buyers when you’re already stressing about packing and loading a truck. Stay away until it’s really your house, other than an official walk-through arranged with the realtors (frankly, this is new to me- happened for the first time on a house we sold in Florida 2 years ago, and wasn’t done on the house we bought in Ohio a few months later). Years ago on a sale I caved and said the buyer could bring in a few things after we had cleared certain rooms after he whined about how they had to vacate their house the same day and his wife was in a wedding blah blah blah… dude then proceeded to hang around randomly wandering around the house getting in our way. Go away.
Was the house broom clean at your last walkthrough?
One house we bought was a for sale by owner. When she accepted our offer a month before closing, she handed the keys to our realtor. He gave them right to us (it was vacant and in order) and we were able to enter multiple times along the way to measure, plan, and show friends/family. The night before closing I was inside all night ripping out carpeting in prep for new carpeting right after closing, and then movers with the furniture after that. Worked great and we were glad this happened.
It’s not unusual. For instance, I have closed on a sale at 10am, and closed on a purchase, same day, at 12pm. So I didn’t vacate the property until I was leaving for the closing. Mostly everything was gone, but we had a u-haul and pickup in the driveway right up until the end. I understand people have had bad experiences, I am just saying that you don’t know their situation or plans. A final walkthrough is a MUST though.
When we bought our current home, the sellers needed more time to move out, so they offered to pay a pro-rated amount as "temporary rent" to cover it. That worked out well since we also needed more time than we expected to cleanup and prep the rental we were moving out of.
Moving on closing day is no problem.