Comments on: Taking Possession

By: marie.hagman

marie.hagman — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 05:30:21 +0000

jgirl – that’s great advice! I know that no matter how much the seller tries to clean, I will disinfect from top to bottom anyway. I definitely don’t want to have to dispose of the previous owner’s trash though. I always get to know all my neighbors and end up coming back to visit. As a seller, I would hate to have new owners of my house tell my friends that I left the house a dump.

By: thomas

thomas — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:29:36 +0000

This was a case of the glass being half-full. But, a nice bottle of something is not a strange gift for someone who just bought a house, especially if it is yours. Now if it was half of a tall glass, then you should have revoked the deal completely with those philistines. I am assuming this was Los Danzantes.

By: jgirl

jgirl — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:54:17 +0000

I have also had problems on the buy side of taking possession. Sometimes agents put into the contract (without telling you and you don’t notice it) that possession will change hands 3 days after closing. Don’t do it! If there’s anything amiss, you have absolutely no leverage to cause the sellers to make it right. You’re stuck with cleaning their disgusting filth, taking a load of paint and hazardous stuff to the haz-mat site, hauling away their remaining junk, etc. I find that agents don’t care either. Selling agents don’t educate their sellers that they have to get rid of all their stuff and clean. At least that’s the decent way to do it. Buyer agents just want the sale to close, so they just kind of shrug their shoulders and say that’s the way it is. I now put my foot down. I will only agree to possession at closing. I will only close if the seller has taken all of their junk and cleaned the house. I basically say that I’m not closing unless the seller does the right thing. And why don’t agents get more involved in this part of the deal to make sure that things go smoothly???? They’re off counting their money, that’s why.

By: Marie

Marie — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:07:58 +0000

You’re definitely right about that, I should have charged them for getting in a day early and also billed them for the booze!

Thanks for the tip.

By: eastside roger

eastside roger — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:26:26 +0000

If you let the new owners move in before they actually own it MAKE SURE you “RENT” it to them for however many days they get in early, AND their insurance company says (in writing) that they will cover any liabilities during early possession.

Why? What if they or whoever is helping them move hurts themselvers or there is damage to the house, who is responsible? You are since you technically still own it.

The people who bought our first home had their bro-in-law do the financing. He screwed it up so it was going to be a few days later that they could move it. They insisted on moving in that weekend so we came up with the above scenario to protect ourselves.