Old sofa in our new house!

[Guest]

Originally Posted by 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.

See more...

I have changed sofas quite a few times in my life, my DH and his brother once found a charity to take one but they had to get a van and take it themselves. I have never yet found a charity wiling to collect at all! Hence why I would be so annoyed by this, it usually costs £80 to get someone to collect and remove a sofa.

[Anne]

Originally Posted by Claudette

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.

See more...

This. It is not your responsibility to get rid of it. You should contact your solicitor today.

[SquishTheWhale]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I have changed sofas quite a few times in my life, my DH and his brother once found a charity to take one but they had to get a van and take it themselves. I have never yet found a charity wiling to collect at all! Hence why I would be so annoyed by this, it usually costs £80 to get someone to collect and remove a sofa.

See more...

BHF do collect- but of course they could be fussy and say they don't want it.

I've just been googling and the seller SHOULD collect it, but if they say No we are essentially stuck unless we want to take them to court over it, which we obviously don't. So I'll try contacting the solicitor but I'll still wait and see if BHF will have it.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by SquishTheWhale

BHF do collect- but of course they could be fussy and say they don't want it.

I've just been googling and the seller SHOULD collect it, but if they say No we are essentially stuck unless we want to take them to court over it, which we obviously don't. So I'll try contacting the solicitor but I'll still wait and see if BHF will have it.

See more...

You should contact your solicitor, you should look have done immediately but you didn’t know how bad this is. Your solicitor will tell them that they need to remove it within a very short time frame, by this I mean a day or two.

I would leave it to my solicitor, but I would expect them to give the seller a short time frame to collect it. They should be told that if they do not remove it within that time frame that it will be removed at your expense and all costs will be recovered from them via the small claims court.

There is no reason for you to not want to follow this process, you can lodge a small claim online for a small upfront cost. You will definitely win this and you will recover your small upfront costs via small claims too.

[marypoppins38]

Originally Posted by Claudette

I have changed sofas quite a few times in my life, my DH and his brother once found a charity to take one but they had to get a van and take it themselves. I have never yet found a charity wiling to collect at all! Hence why I would be so annoyed by this, it usually costs £80 to get someone to collect and remove a sofa.

See more...

BHF do collect near us but I don’t know of any other charities that do. I was just so annoyed that they were going to throw a practically new sofa into landfill because there were no armchairs so might take a little while extra to sell. I certainly won’t donate a thing to them again, it’s really tarnished my view of the charity as a whole. I agree in this case though, the seller should be removing it. They probably haven’t because as you say, it will cost them about £80. I think they are being darn cheeky in leaving it!

[TigerMom]

Originally Posted by Claudette

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.

See more...

Wow. All that anger over a sofa. It is just possible the sellers were trying to be nice and left the sofa as a gift. Yes OP needs to contact her solicitor and tell them she doesn't want the sofa but it's just possible the sellers will sort it without any fuss. I don't see the point in getting irate until you know for sure you have something to be irate about. Life is too short for all that angst.

[Disney_time]

Originally Posted by 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.

See more...

We also moved into a house full of furniture and junk. Our solicitor did try to get the sellers to pay for a skip, but since they were selling to save being repossessed, they had no money and wouldn't pay. We'd have had to sue them.

[Guest]

Originally Posted by TigerMom

Wow. All that anger over a sofa. It is just possible the sellers were trying to be nice and left the sofa as a gift. Yes OP needs to contact her solicitor and tell them she doesn't want the sofa but it's just possible the sellers will sort it without any fuss. I don't see the point in getting irate until you know for sure you have something to be irate about. Life is too short for all that angst.

See more...

I am not angry as it isn’t my house. But actually, yes, if I find a relative stranger has dumped their unwanted sofa in my house or garden without my permission, I would not assume it was a thoughtful gift, I would be angry and I make no apology for that. If you are happy to let people dump unwanted furniture on your property then that is great for you, but most people wouldn’t like it. It is also illegal.

The seller did not leave it as a gift, they left it because they couldn’t be bothered finding a free way to dispose of it. Naive to think otherwise.

[marypoppins38]

Originally Posted by TigerMom

Wow. All that anger over a sofa. It is just possible the sellers were trying to be nice and left the sofa as a gift. Yes OP needs to contact her solicitor and tell them she doesn't want the sofa but it's just possible the sellers will sort it without any fuss. I don't see the point in getting irate until you know for sure you have something to be irate about. Life is too short for all that angst.

See more...

So you would be happy to pay to get it removed? OP needs it gone do she can fit her own furniture in. For all the sellers knew the OP might have turned up with a van full of her own furniture on completion day and have no where to put it because of the sofa they had left. If they were being nice then the sensible thing would have been to contact them to ask whether they would like it. They have probably decided it wasn’t going to the new house with them and didn’t want to pay the £80 to get it taken away.

[SquishTheWhale]

Originally Posted by Claudette

You should contact your solicitor, you should look have done immediately but you didn’t know how bad this is. Your solicitor will tell them that they need to remove it within a very short time frame, by this I mean a day or two.

I would leave it to my solicitor, but I would expect them to give the seller a short time frame to collect it. They should be told that if they do not remove it within that time frame that it will be removed at your expense and all costs will be recovered from them via the small claims court.

There is no reason for you to not want to follow this process, you can lodge a small claim online for a small upfront cost. You will definitely win this and you will recover your small upfront costs via small claims too.

See more...

There is definitely reasons for us not wanting to pursue them through the small claims court, mainly that we are moving and having a baby and are just too busy for that. I barely have time to pack!

We are not living in the house yet and are a 40 minute drive away so unless they have been very naughty and kept a key they won't be able to gain access to remove it until the weekend. So at the moment I'll wait for a reply from BHF rather than charging in all guns blazing.