Old sofa in our new house!

[SquishTheWhale]

We got the keys to our house at the weekend which is amazing- except the sellers have left a sofa they were not supposed to! It was definitely not listed in the contents document or we would have told them no we don't want it.

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were trying to help us out as they know we are first time buyers. But we don't want it and it absolutley needs to go before we move our own sofa in! Luckily we have a 3 week overlap between this and our rented house so we didn't turn up with a van full of furniture to find this sofa in the way.

I've filled in the form on the British Heart foundation website to see if they will come and get it so waiting for a response on that. I also put it for free on Facebook marketplace to collect but no interest. My mum says the sellers have a legal obligation to remove it and I should kick up a fuss with them. Is this correct? If so is there a certain time frame they must remove it in? We need rid of it next weekend as we are still living in our old place during the week!

[lizzie145]

From memory they have to remove all items except those agreed in writing.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by SquishTheWhale

We got the keys to our house at the weekend which is amazing- except the sellers have left a sofa they were not supposed to! It was definitely not listed in the contents document or we would have told them no we don't want it.

I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and say they were trying to help us out as they know we are first time buyers. But we don't want it and it absolutley needs to go before we move our own sofa in! Luckily we have a 3 week overlap between this and our rented house so we didn't turn up with a van full of furniture to find this sofa in the way.

I've filled in the form on the British Heart foundation website to see if they will come and get it so waiting for a response on that. I also put it for free on Facebook marketplace to collect but no interest. My mum says the sellers have a legal obligation to remove it and I should kick up a fuss with them. Is this correct? If so is there a certain time frame they must remove it in? We need rid of it next weekend as we are still living in our old place during the week!

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You absolutely should kick up the most almighty fuss. This is something you should be telling your conveyancing solicitor about so that they can contact the sellers to tell them it needs to be removed at their expense else there will be legal consequences. The time frame is that it should not have been left in the first place.

I would take it off Facebook market place, uncontact the British heart foundation (charities won’t collect old furniture) and remove its listing from anywhere else, as that suggests you are accepting responsibility for it.

It is totally unacceptable that they have left you with unwanted furniture to dispose of and you need to hugely dial up your level of outrage. This is not legal and is no different to me deciding I want to change my sofa so I use the spare key to dump my old one on my next door neighbours house or in their front garden if I can’t find the spare key, and leave them to get rid of for me. Your mother is right.

[JessBlu]

If Facebook / charity don’t want it then call them, if someone else takes it, win win.

[malt1977]

Don’t forget to check down the sides for cash and TV remotes, it could be worth you while

[sotagals]

Your solicitor should contact theirs and get them to move it.

Vacant possession means just that.

If it hasn't got any fire labels you won't be able to donate it. They have just been lazy leaving it like that.

We once had to get our sellers to pay for a skip they had left so much junk behind.

[SquishTheWhale]

It had fire labels and BHF do take old sofas. It's not even manky or anything and it's a Next one.

So its the solicitor I should go through not the estate agent?

[Guest]

Originally Posted by SquishTheWhale

It had fire labels and BHF do take old sofas. It's not even manky or anything and it's a Next one.

So its the solicitor I should go through not the estate agent?

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Yes, solicitor it is nothing to do with the estate agent. Whether it is manky or not isn’t the point, it is not on you to dispose of their unwanted items.

[Guest]

They will take old sofas but you are better off ringing them and they’ll tell you When they have a van in the area.
I would tell my solicitor though as that’s not on .

[marypoppins38]

BHF are incredibly fussy about what furniture they will take. I was giving them a M&S sofa and footstool that was only a couple of years old and in pristine condition as it was in a room we hardly used. We were changing the room so it wouldn’t fit anymore and I thought I was doing a good deed by donating it so they could make some money. However when they came to collect it they were really sniffy about whether they were going to take it or not as apparently they only want things that will sell quick (I don’t suppose a sofa and footstool would sell as fast as a 3 piece suite). They said if they got it to the shop and the manager decided no then it would go in the skip. I was horrified that they would do that so vowed never to donate to them again.