New Neighbours

[Geek King]

A friendly reminder to anyone looking for a house (or rental, for that matter): Remember, if it isn't in the contract, its not part of the deal. Make sure anything discussed is on the paper and signed by all parties, or else it is not enforcable in the eyes of the law.

[Sapphire Silk]

1000 pounds off for Curtains? were they woven with genuine gold thread? Old Neighbor should have said they were being cleaned. It was none of the bitches business where they were. unless the sales agreement stated all curtains were being left, old owners had no obligation to leave the house anything but bare (except for the stuff in the sales contract of course .)

NNL was trying to get ON to knock down the price . . . and it worked. It was never about the curtains.

When I'm finally able to buy a house I am not going to complain and nitpick, I'm gonna be happy that I'm gonna finally own a home.

Complain. I love the house I bought 2 1/2 years ago . . . but there are many things about this house that I should have insisted the seller either fix or knock down the price for. Houses will nickel and dime you to death if you're not careful.

I know when my parents bought their current house they were told that all the existing appliances were to be sold with the house. Imagine their surprise on the day that they officially took possession of the place to discover mis-matched and beaten up everything! Oh, and the nice shiny new hot water heater that had supposedly been installed the month before they bought the house? Gone too, and in it's place was a rusted hunk of junk..

Did they do a final walk through? When I bought my house, the dishwasher was leaking and the broiler in the oven did not work. Those were fixed and I tested them the day I did the final walk through.

Your parents could have sued the seller for what they did.

[greek_jester]

When I'm finally able to buy a house I am not going to complain and nitpick, I'm gonna be happy that I'm gonna finally own a home.

You know, I thought I'd be that way too, until I had to:

1) Pay for a skip to get rid of the rubbish the previous owner left behind;
2) Replace floorboards that had been damaged by the previous owner's rubbish leaking something vile;
3) Deal with over a hundred letters from various debt-collection agencies relating to the previous owner's debts (guess who hadn't informed them she'd moved?)

If you buy your own property, make sure you:

1) Get in writing a list of anything that's being left, with pictures and/or serial numbers of larger, more expensive items;
2) Get a firm moving date & price, again, in writing, with a clause for non-compliance;
3) Have a clause in the contract where you can withhold a portion of the fee (usually anything from £500 to a few thousand, depending on the property size) if the property is not completely cleared of anything that wasn't previously agreed in the contract (e.g. tools in the shed, etc) so that you can pay for a skip without being out of pocket.

[Rena_Muffin]

Wow. Just...wow. You should taunt the New Neighbor with those lawn ornaments, set them up and make them look all awesome. I dunno though, that just might be my inner evil talking there. It may not be such a good idea in retrospect.

[ralerin]

As an aside, why would laundry in the kitchen/in a closet off the kitchen unsanitary, and it is better slogging bins of laundry up and down stairs instead of going into the hallway and washing it near where you dress and undress? and where the fuck are you supposed to put the little washroom that is for visitors and people down away from the bedrooms?

Sounds like a good idea in theory but I think it's because people don't want the noise of the machine interrupting their sleep, the heat they generate or the lint that might fly everywhere.

[AccountingDrone]

ugg i hate that too infact i once was watching hidden potential and started to feel sad when they went to think 100 year old Victorian that was justifiably weird and the buyers where really raging on it quirks. though the architect did a good job with the remake even if i did think he went way way too modern in the kitchen (this one i understood, the only way into the kitchen was through an awkward hallway/bathroom) but he redeemed himself by giving them a very nice french style boduie (sp?) style master with a dressing room and updated heating system.

but it makes me sad that people want to guy everything.

Well on the Nashville one, the second house shown was a lakefront mid 50s modern, so I don't feel as bad about them remodeling it. You should never frell around with an historic property other than carefully restore and make safe stuff like electrical system, plumbing and gas lines. If it is a run of the mill vicy, not a big deal but this was one of the Nashville Historic properties.

OMG I know what you mean......Oh the master bath is sooooo small....what do they want for $200,000

Location, size, amenities. Pick 2 byatch.

I know when my parents bought their current house they were told that all the existing appliances were to be sold with the house. Imagine their surprise on the day that they officially took possession of the place to discover mis-matched and beaten up everything! Oh, and the nice shiny new hot water heater that had supposedly been installed the month before they bought the house? Gone too, and in it's place was a rusted hunk of junk.

Why the hell anybody would pull that sort of thing was beyond me. It's not like the house was going into foreclosure or anything.

Some people are total assholes. There is, of course the option to sue if the contract specifies the appliances that were there - it is *assumed* that you get what you saw when you originally and subsequently toured the place with your realtor.

A friendly reminder to anyone looking for a house (or rental, for that matter): Remember, if it isn't in the contract, its not part of the deal. Make sure anything discussed is on the paper and signed by all parties, or else it is not enforcable in the eyes of the law.

You know, I thought I'd be that way too, until I had to:

1) Pay for a skip to get rid of the rubbish the previous owner left behind;
2) Replace floorboards that had been damaged by the previous owner's rubbish leaking something vile;
3) Deal with over a hundred letters from various debt-collection agencies relating to the previous owner's debts (guess who hadn't informed them she'd moved?)

If you buy your own property, make sure you:

1) Get in writing a list of anything that's being left, with pictures and/or serial numbers of larger, more expensive items;
2) Get a firm moving date & price, again, in writing, with a clause for non-compliance;
3) Have a clause in the contract where you can withhold a portion of the fee (usually anything from £500 to a few thousand, depending on the property size) if the property is not completely cleared of anything that wasn't previously agreed in the contract (e.g. tools in the shed, etc) so that you can pay for a skip without being out of pocket.

All good advice, when we looked at the apartment we lived in before we moved to Ct, I had a polaroid and 10 boxes of cartridges for it. Every inspection hit rob found, I took 2 pictures of and we noted the date and had the housing agent countersign it with me. When we went to move out, we took the same sheaf of pix, which his dad kindly turned into regular photos, showing the agents date and sig and our set of original polaroids. The agent Rob and I went through the place with the pictures and got the agent to tick off on the copies every one that was still there, and we had only 1 single problem - where the upstairs neighbor overflowed their laundry and since the building management had refused to do anything other than paint over it, they couldn't ding us on it so we got the entire deposit back.

We bought our current house with no appliances, which was fine. We set aside money to buy appliances [ all the bottom of the line cheapies from the Navy exchange unit. I think it was $300 stove, $300 refrigerator, $500 stacked washer dryer and a 25000 BTU $800 air conditioner that does the entire house.]

[Shalom]

As an aside, why would laundry in the kitchen/in a closet off the kitchen [be] unsanitary, and it is better slogging bins of laundry up and down stairs instead of going into the hallway and washing it near where you dress and undress?

For the first 27 years of my life, my family always had the washing machine in the kitchen, and the dryer in the basement. For all that time we'd have to shlepp the heavy wet laundry from the washer down the stairs to the dryer. ("Shalom, the washing machine finished, take down the laundry!") In our old house, which had 4 apartments, we were on the second floor, so there it was down two flights of stairs. One of these days I have to ask my mom what Grandpa was thinking when he set it up that way.

It's true there wasn't room in our tiny kitchens for both a washer and a dryer, but that being the case, why not put both of them downstairs? There was a sink in the dryer room already, so the pipes were there, and it wouldn't have been any big difficulty for him to do the install, or have it done. (Of course my grandparents, who lived in the upstairs apartment, mostly used the clothesline rather than the dryer if the weather was right for it, so for them it was more convenient to have their washer in the kitchen, but there wasn't any reason ours couldn't move down there, except that we'd always done it that way and it never occurred to us to change it.)

[Anakah]

Weren't they stuck in buying it? I had to put 1k down to put a hold on the house I am trying to buy. My first, I'm excited! To the point where the lady is ready to move out because she was sure that it was locked in that those idiots were buying her house. Did they back out at the last min? If so I'm sure they lost their 1k hold. That is non refundable.

I seriously hope your neighbor does NOT cover their closing costs. They don't deserve it! JERKS!

[zzapp the witch]

When I was in the process of buying my place the neighbor backed his truck up and stole the well-pump. Seriously, the whole thing (it was an inground pump). The nurse that had taken care of the previous owner until the died helped herself to the stove, dishwasher, hot water heater and refrigerator.

Got a nice replacement on the well pump with a better pump and a holding tank, and a great price break because of all the appliances being stolen.

We've had some problems here locally with people buying the historic homes, stripping all of the fixtures out, gutting anything of any worth, and abandoning the homes. Some locals are still trying to figure out if its a ploy by some people on City Council to get rid of some of the homes because they're on really good real estate. You'd think they'd just have the home moved.

[AccountingDrone]

my roomie has a small 13 foot camping trailer in the field that she stores scrap iron in [to keep it out of the rain] and one time this past summer I caught someone in the fielt trying to hook their pickup to it .. "I thought it was abandoned" They had to lift a gate marked Do Not Trespass, go about 100 yards down a driveway, through yet another gate, past a chicken yard with loud squawky birds, around the back of our house and wade through 3 foot tall grass/weeds/feral plants of whatever type.

The trailer is not licensed, has a tarp sort of strapped over it, and is up on blocks ... it is not moving any time soon. [if we put up a cute shed, it would get taxed, the junker trailer we got off the side of the road isn't taxed ]

[dendawg]

my roomie has a small 13 foot camping trailer in the field that she stores scrap iron in [to keep it out of the rain] and one time this past summer I caught someone in the fielt trying to hook their pickup to it .. "I thought it was abandoned" They had to lift a gate marked Do Not Trespass, go about 100 yards down a driveway, through yet another gate, past a chicken yard with loud squawky birds, around the back of our house and wade through 3 foot tall grass/weeds/feral plants of whatever type.

Roomie may want to consider buying a hitch lock to put on the trailer.

[protege]

They had to lift a gate marked Do Not Trespass, go about 100 yards down a driveway, through yet another gate, past a chicken yard with loud squawky birds, around the back of our house and wade through 3 foot tall grass/weeds/feral plants of whatever type.

If someone tried that in rural SW PA...they'd find themselves on the business end of a shotgun. Some, if they catch you on their land, *will* shoot first, and ask questions later That's why everyone else tends to take the "Posted" and "No Trespassing" signs seriously, especially the ones already riddled with bullet holes.

Seriously though, I'd get a hitch lock, or remove the hitch altogether, along with the wheels. Also, I'd think about concealing the trailer somehow--a pile of earth would do the trick.

[Amethyst Hunter]

When my family and I had moved out of my childhood home several years ago, we learned some time after the sale that the new owners took out the old kitchen countertop and put in this granite-type crap. And painted all the cupboarding - which was dark wood to begin with - BLACK. Now imagine all that, in a house whose interior tends to be rather dark already even in broad daylight (just the way the house/windows are situated, and it's all dark wood trim in there). Say hello to your roommate Depression...

(I don't even want to contemplate what they might've done with my old room.)

Especially in this age of foreclosures, I've learned that it's not uncommon for some former residents to purposely rip out/damage a place before the bank/whoever takes possession of it. Found that out when earlier this year my folks and I were looking at possible places for me and I saw one that might've been a contender...but for some fairly heavy remodeling it needed. That's when a realtor relative of ours informed us that if it had been the case, there were very likely other major problems as well, which wouldn't have been worth the headache to get fixed. D:

[Aethian]

I had found what I thought to be a wonderful place. Until the realtor showed me the place. At this vacant house someone was squatting in. Place was trashed... Sad too I was originally going to offer asking price. Bank eventually auctioned it and got less then a 1/8th of what I originally was thinking of. But I missed the auction.

[Jay 2K Winger]

For some reason this reminds me of that episode of CSI where the crime scene's walls were covered with blood, which turned out to be from the soon-to-be-ex-husband, who had a condition that more or less allowed him to spray blood out of his nose, and over the course of several days he'd done that to the walls to spite his soon-to-be-ex-wife.

IIRC, that was based off an actual incident one of the creators of the series had heard about/experienced.