How to price fixtures & fittings

Newly_retired

And I thought this was a moneysaving site!
In my day - groan - we were just grateful for any hand me downs, which saved us having to buy everything from scratch. In our first property we began with only the following new items:bed, easy chairs, cooker, one carpet. And whatever else we were given as wedding presents.
Families helped with bits of furniture, curtains, rugs. We bought other things second hand, till we could afford to replace.
Nowadays we still buy some items second hand, but antiques!

TheCyclingProgrammer

I'd be very hesitant about paying anything significant for chattels if you're right on a stamp duty threshold, even if you're not buying them to avoid stamp duty, simply because you expose yourself to the risk of HMRC challenging the valuation and ending up with a huge tax bill.

For example, if you've had an offer of £250k accepted, any payment on top of this for chattels, even if reasonable, leaves you exposed to an investigation. It only takes an overvaluation of a penny to put you in the higher bracket. Maybe that's an extreme example, but be careful.

Personally I'd expect things like carpets, curtains and integrated appliances to be staying, especially if they are listed in the original listing. I wouldn't assume freestanding white goods are staying, especially if it's something like a newish expensive American style fridge freezer which could easily still be worth hundreds of pounds second hand.

BabyBoots

I agree that £200 is reasonable for your collection of used white goods, and it would be best to leave for free any curtains you won't use in the new place. Remember, these are the people you might need to send on the odd bit of mail in the future, or do you some other favour.

I bought from someone who was moving into a one bedroom from a four bedroom place. I had paid full asking price, and they wanted to know if I would buy any of their curtains or electricals. I said I'd be very grateful for anything they could leave, but didn't have any money left to buy anything.

I nearly bought a house from a person who asked if I'd like to buy their lounge carpet and various curtains and blinds. I politely declined (their taste was shocking - the kitchen blind had a giant chicken on it, and the two toddlers and three cats had certainly left their share of bodily fluids on the lounge carpet). The fixtures and fittings list came through, with all the items I had said no to priced - £200 for the icky carpet and £50 for the chicken blind... the sale fell through...

tigsly

If youask them for money - and they refuse to pay you could ebay them and sell them.. although I recently bought a pair of second hand ebay curtains for £13 when i recon they must have cost a few hundered (exceptinoally good quality and hand made..)

so in terms of what is a 'used' curtain worth.. not much!!

The_White_Horse

It's pretty simple really - to put up fitted curtains/blinds in that flat would cost about £2k (it had very large and irregular shaped windows).

I offered to give them the 1 yr old curtains I had paid for - for a reasonably low amount.

They refused, and thought they should get them for free.

I smashed them to bits (still makes me smile) the blinds mostly - I kept some of the curtain material. Ebay wasn't really an option back then.

The Master Negotiaters paid an extra £1.2k-1.5k more to put up blinds and curtains than they needed to.

These curtains/blinds were a year old. Not as if they were 30 yrs old and I was trying to flog them.

As I say, I had the last laugh. I still continue to laugh about it many years later. Its the laugh that keeps on giving so to speak.

pimento

The_White_Horse wrote: »

They were ungrateful scum. Still, you jump to your conclusions about what sort of person I am.

Perhaps your buyer didn't like your taste in window dressings enough to pay for them. My vendor left a horrible emerald green venetian blind in the spare room and I took it down and put up a sheet until I could afford to put what I liked in its place.

Perhaps they were grateful not to be put in the position of having to have your taste at their new windows?

Giant chicken, anyone?

The_White_Horse

they were pretty neutral to be fair. they had no curtains or blinds for about 6 months (i lived in the area and saw it as I went by). Mwhahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

pimento

By the same token, you only had 12 months use out of £2k's worth of blinds and curtains. That must have hurt.

barbiedoll

When I bought my flat, I was haggling with the estate agent over the price. We were too-ing and fro-ing and I finally said something along the lines of I'd pay the extra £500 if she left the living-room curtains. She had a nice set of plain curtains and a lovely voile panel which looked really pretty in the large window. It was all agreed and I was quite happy.

Come moving day, and she had taken every other curtain and rail with her, apart from the living-room curtains and the (cheap) track. The voile panel was gone, as was the tiny bit of net curtain that was hanging on the small bathroom window.

When we moved out of the flat, 6 years later, we left our fridge-freezer, our very expensive shelving unit and our also-very-expensive sofa-bed (after asking the buyer if he wanted them) Our buyer was so grateful, he had hardly any furniture and was really pleased with the sofa-bed especially (he had a young son who would come and stay with him). He also got the curtains!

I wouldn't have dreamed of asking any money for the items!

AndyT678

The_White_Horse wrote: »

they were pretty neutral to be fair. they had no curtains or blinds for about 6 months (i lived in the area and saw it as I went by). Mwhahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps your buyers didn’t get replacement curtains and blinds for 6 months because they had no money. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps they didn’t pay £500 for your curtains and blinds because they had no money. It might not be any sort of master mind negotiation tactic just a simple choice for them between buying a bed to sleep in or buying your curtains.

Nobody can dispute that the stuff was yours to take but to smash it up and leave it just demonstrates what a spiteful and vindictive little scroat you are.

The Germans have a word for people who enjoy other people’s suffering. Actually so do we. I can’t type it on here but it rhymes with shunt.