We bought the house we currently live in many years ago. We had been searching for more than a year when we saw the “For Sale by Owner” sign the first day it went up. My wife and I immediately fell in love with the house and the surrounding property. The house had been built only a few years earlier. The owner had used some structural elements from an old farmhouse that had been on the property for almost a century and had fallen into disrepair.
The property also came with a barn that stood far down the driveway next to where the old farmhouse had initially stood. While the house was sparsely furnished, the barn was stuffed with material from the current owner as well as previous owners of the property. Before buying the house, we met with the owner several times to discuss the material in the barn and each time, he agreed to make sure it was removed before the closing date. Well, we have been in the house 20 years and we still have not finished removing all the stuff left behind by previous owners.
Evidently, our situation, is not particularly unique. As reported in The New York Times, new home or condominium owners frequently arrive to find that their newly purchased property is not quite as empty as expected. Sales of homes and condominiums can be disrupted at the last minute by new demands of the seller, failure of the seller to make the required or requested repairs, or simply failure of the seller to remove items that the seller does not want.
While the first two are usually addressed during the final inspection, the buyer does not have much recourse when upon moving in, the buyer finds a large piece of furniture left behind. All sorts of things can be left behind including bulky items that are too hard or expensive to remove, plants, furniture that predated the current owner, and even pets. The best defense against such a surprise is to put everything in writing and do a walk through more than a day before the sale. As for us, we were pleasantly surprised to find a very large and useful wood clamp in the barn.
The broken 1960s lawn furniture, old moldy carpets, and broken farm implements and furniture were not considered treasures, however. Over the years, we have been making steady progress clearing out the barn, and the barn is now mostly filled with our own stuff. This makes us wonder, though, what will we do with at that stuff in the barn when we finally move?
WVR
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/realestate/what-sellers-leave-behind.html?emc=eta1&_r=0