united-states property
If the seller of the house leaves their belongings inside, do they automatically become the buyer&#39;s possession when the transaction is complete?
<p>I've had a peculiar situation recently while buying a house in Washington:</p>
<ol>
<li>During the initial viewing I've noticed that the garage is full of boxes with various items</li>
<li>After signing the purchase document the boxes were still there</li>
<li>During the final pre inspection (one week before closing) the boxes were still there and my closing agent notified the seller about it</li>
<li>After closing and getting the keys, the boxes were still there</li>
<li>The seller finally picked up their stuff a few days afterwards</li>
</ol>
<p>But this made me curious - could I have refused to let the seller to pick up their stuff after officially becoming the owner of the property? The common sense perspective is that the house is transferred &quot;as is&quot; and since the seller was warned about the remaining boxes, they should've picked them up before completing the sale or else they've forfeited their rights.</p>

<h2>No, you could not have prevented them from collecting their belongings</h2>
<p><strong>But you could have sued for trespass</strong></p>
<p>Unless those boxes were part of the contract for sale, they remain the vendor’s property and just like you can’t withhold your mate’s trombone that he accidentally left after that great party, you can’t withhold the vendor’s boxes - that’s called “stealing”.</p>
<p>What you could (should?) have done is refuse to settle until the boxes were removed. As the vendor was in breach, if you suffered any unmitigated loss as a result of the delay, you would be entitled to recover it. This is one of the reasons why you should inspect on the day of settlement.</p>
<p>Given that you accepted the breach, even though the vendor’s boxes were technically trespassing, they could reasonably raise the defense that they had implicit permission- at least for a reasonable time. “A few days” is a reasonable time.</p>
