Final inspection question..

[f_m]

You should be seeing it in the condition it will be left to you, not with other stuff there.

[Roselvr]

Originally Posted by nikkin

I actually mean final walk through question.........We are about to close on a lake house property.. This is our problem.. The people are moving to Florida.. but need 10 days to move out.. We don't want to close til they are moving out.. day of to be exact. The reasons behind this are .. the house is fully furnished.. and we want to be sure they leave everything they say they are. In our contract, it reads they are only taking these items.. piano, grill, two tvs. But we are still leary of closing before final walk throught takes place at last possible moment.. Are we being too picky, untrusting? Thanks for any feed back.

You really, really need someone representing you. This late in the game, you need to find a decent real estate attorney.

When exactly is the supposed closing and what day do they want to move out? The way it sounds to me, last night was going to be the closing, but they wanted 10 days (after last night) to vacate? Did I get that right?

Every area is different, posting the state/county would be helpful. In some states you go to closing, then once the funds are transferred (about a week later from what I understood of what I read) then the seller has to be out. So yes, it is normal in some areas.

In NJ, the seller has to be out usually the day before or before the final walk through. We were not, took 30 minutes after walk through but we were out by closing. Our buyer could have requested to walk the house one last time but did not. It's a long story about why we weren't out but it was the best we could do.

Had we needed to stay longer, which in reality for us would have been nice to have 2 more days in the house; we would have rented it back, which is what it sounds like your sellers might need. If this is the case, you usually get compensated for it. I don't know what the formulation is but I would imagine you consider what it would cost to rent something similar, then divide that by the amount of days. The seller would need to keep insurance (renters) on the house.

Would I do a rent back? Probably not, especially in this market. Too many people like to file law suits, then you have a ticked off seller that might damage something. About the only way I would consider it is if there was money held in escrow, and it had to be a decent amount, especially in your case with the furnishings staying, would $15k cover it? Then I would have another walk through with everyone there after they were out.

Good luck.

[tagylyn]

When I bought my house, the seller did a 30 day rent back. I showed up at 9:00 am the day I was to take possession of the house. She was only half way moved out. I had a car packed with stuff so I decided to return at 2:00 pm. I didn't want to stand there and watch nor help.

It was pouring down raining that day, they backed their truck up through the back yard to the house to load up from an upstairs door (clearing out 2nd level). They left huge ruts in the yard.

The owner left so much junk in the basement and the house was only "broom clean". Actually it was filthy, not exaggerating - the dishwasher, stove, washing machine, dryer and toilet was layered in dirt and cat hair. The refrigerator was on the old side and it was so disgusting I just threw it out and my Mom bought me a new one for house warming gift. I had to take 2 extra days off of work just to clean.

I don't know why I never pursued any damages, I think I was just happy to finally be owning my own house!