Q: My husband and I moved in April. At 2pm on the day of completion, we were outside our new house with our furniture in the removal van when we were told that completion was going to be delayed: the seller had failed to do something and couldn’t hand over the keys. We had to put our contents into storage and find an hotel for a couple of nights, eventually moving in on Friday the 13th. We have kept all the receipts and our itemised list of expenses came to £2,500, without taking into account the stress we suffered. Despite numerous letters and phone calls, we are still waiting for the money. What should we do?

A: Whether you can claim compensation and the amount you will get depends on the terms of the sale contract. Fortunately, almost all contracts for the sale of land in England and Wales incorporate standard sets of Conditions of Sale, so the principles are pretty well established. If the seller misses the agreed completion date, a buyer can’t simply pull out of the deal – unless a special notice has been served making “time of the essence”. However, the House of Lords ruled in 1980 that a buyer can still claim damages for late completion.

Your damages will include any additional expenditure reasonably attributable to the delay. This should include the extra storage and removal costs. If you can show that you would not have otherwise stayed in an hotel or eaten in a restaurant, you should also be able to claim these costs. In practice, you might have to deduct a small amount to reflect what you would anyway have spent on food, etc, had you moved into your new home on the completion day. Although it is theoretically possible to obtain damages for the stress, this is unlikely to be worth the trouble.

Write directly to the seller claiming your list of expenses as damages for breach of the terms of the sale contract and set a deadline after which you will issue proceedings. If the seller does not pay up, issue a claim using the small claims procedure in your local County Court. This is simple enough for you to do without a solicitor; your local Citizen’s Advice Bureau should be able to help you to draft it. Don’t forget to claim interest. And perhaps next time, try to avoid moving on Friday the 13th!

The writer is a barrister at Tanfield Chambers (020-7421 5300). E-mail your questions to: property.consumer@thetimes.co.uk

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