House sold - Can I take fixtures and fittings away with me?

ahfh1

Hi,

If I sold my house, would I be allowed to take away the fixtures and fittings away with me?

I'm just talking about small things such as bathroom cabinets and kitchen shelves, toilet roll holders, towel rails, blinds, curtains etc i.e. things that I've screwed into the walls.

I know these are small things, but they will save me a lot of money if I can take these away with me and put them into my new house!

Cheers

Inactive

Normally fixtures have to be left with the property, obviously curtains are not a fixture, but curtain rails are.

MUMMYTO2BOYS

If you specify to any prospective buyers befoer they make an offer exactly what is included in the sale, and what is not then they won't have any complaints.

It would put me off making an offer if I thought I'd be moving into a house stripped of anything worth taking though.

SailorSam

You can take anything you want, so long as it's in the contract and your buyer has agreed to it.

skint-student-nurse

i would double check with the buyer that they are ok with this,my house was lush when we looked at it, and when we moved in,everything including the lightbulbs had gone!

McKneff

The usual rule is if you turn your house upside down without the roof, whatever falls out you can legally take away with you, (probably excludes light bulbs lol)

dander

I agree with the above - as part of the legal process you fill in a form stating exactly what you are taking with you - unless stated it is assumed that anything screwed down is staying.

I think the key is to be reasonable - if you have a particular light fitting you like, or a mirror then it's fine, and decor things like curtains I would assume are not part of the sale unless stated otherwise, but if you strip the house of loo-roll holders etc it just starts to get silly.

Certainly if I were a buyer and I recieved a list that basically said the house was going to be stripped of all those things, then I would be going back to my solicitor and talking about a reduction in price because you're not just talking about the cost of replacing these things, you're also talking about making good the damage - replacements are not necessarily going to fit in the exact same place. If you take them without stating on the form, then the seller is entitled to sue you for breach of contract.

This kind of thing would also make me very wary of the seller and I'd probably start being a little more picky about the sale if I felt the seller was being this petty.

ormus

if its screwed to the walls then leave it. and for gods sake leave the light bulbs!
ive been in a house where all the bulbs were gone. pathetic.

a 50k house and 2 quids worth of bulbs gone! !!!!!!. morons.

i always leave a bog roll, and some tea bags.

Moneymaker

When we moved 30 years ago the seller had not only stripped out the light fittings but had twisted live and neutral wires together. So as soon as we entered the house (in the dark) and hit the first light switch, there was a loud bang from the fuse box!

kai666

When we moved house earlier this year, they took every single light bulb. Left us a telly though!

Would have rather had the light bulbs though to be honest

27col

I think that I am right in saying that you are not allowed to take shrubs from the garden either. There was no way that I was going to take anything from the garden of my last house. The garden was infested with a pernicious weed called ground elder and I could not take the risk of bringing any of that to my new building site.