PN, I am very familiar with taking over predecessor's accommodation, car, furniture, pets etc; however in this case it did not happen. My predecessor was without kids and clearly wasn't concerned about living in a hovel - and problems identified many months in advance of our move were simply not addressed by the parenting body - either because the couldn't care less or that its was a 'budgetary problem' (= couldn't care less).
The FCO are usually much more 'lean-forward' on providing decent accommodation, however the bust-up between the FCO and MOD over funding domestic accommodation several years ago left no one as the winner - especially DAs and their (few) staff.