Valuing chattels

anandp

How do you go about valuing carpets, curtains, curtain poles, blinds, and a satellite dish in a property transaction?

HMRC considers all of these chattels but with a reasonable valuation put on them.

On a 4-bed, 3 storey house, where the upper 2 floors are fully carpeted and curtains were originally expensive 8 years or so ago, how do you place an appropriate number on these items? Equivalents are not exactly going to appear on ebay searches!

G_M

My mother died this year, and to complete the inheritance tax forms we had to provide a figure for the value of her possessions. We had an auctioneer round.

Setting aside certain high value items, he valued the contents of the house at £1500, including furniture, white goods, clothing, personal items, books etc. It's a 3 bed house.

We are still awaiting probate so HMRC might contest this, I don't know, but it at least gives you an idea........

booksurr

are you valuing for the purposes of:
a) probate/inheritance? If yes then as GM suggests a low value <£2,000
would not raise any eyebrows; OR
b) as part of a property purchase, ie fixtures and fittings outside of SDLT, in which case £2k may raise eyebrows

anandp

booksurr wrote: »

are you valuing for the purposes of:
a) probate/inheritance? If yes then as GM suggests a low value <£2,000
would not raise any eyebrows; OR
b) as part of a property purchase, ie fixtures and fittings outside of SDLT, in which case £2k may raise eyebrows

As part of a property purchase. I am actually quite surprised by these figures as I would have thought it would be higher.

As an example, for one of the bay windows, the original curtains cost £800 on their own. So even if you account for second-hand on these, they should surely be worth £300 at least if another window were to take them?

phill99

Reality is that the second hand value of the standard contents of a home is surprisingly low. Ignoring antiques etc, sevonf had furniture, even just a year or so old is virtually worthless. Carpets are valueless as are most curtains.

Gone are the days when people would take up carpets and take them to a new house. Ditto curtains. Peoples expectations have changed, their incomes risen and the cost of these items has dropped dramatically.

On a local facebook selling site, washing machines, even relatively new nes go for £40 - £50' fridge freezers £60, three piece suites under £100 etc. Curtain poles and blinds are fit only for the skip as it is too much hassle to remove them when a half decent pole can be had for under £20 in Wilkinsons.

If you add up all of the items and just get into 4 figures you'll be doing well.

comeandgo

Im with the people who say second hand items very little value. Go to an auction house selling second hand items and you get very little. We asked the people who bought our house if they wanted the blinds, curtains and white goods and we just left them for them. A lot less problems than working out a few hundred pounds.

phill99

anandp wrote: »

As part of a property purchase. I am actually quite surprised by these figures as I would have thought it would be higher.

As an example, for one of the bay windows, the original curtains cost £800 on their own. So even if you account for second-hand on these, they should surely be worth £300 at least if another window were to take them?

The original purchase price of an item is completely irrelevant. The problem with curtains is that tastes and fashion change rapidly. So that high value investment with swags and tails 8 years ago is no longer wanted. Plus then there is the volour. The colour you like is guaranteed not to be liked by anyone else. Plus you need to find someone with the same window dimensions as you. So when ypu have the three main elements of soft furnishings against you ie, fashion, colour and size, they become virtually worthless. Sorry to say this but you will be lucky to get £50 for your £800 curtains.

anandp

phill99 wrote: »

The original purchase price of an item is completely irrelevant. The problem with curtains is that tastes and fashion change rapidly. So that high value investment with swags and tails 8 years ago is no longer wanted. Plus then there is the volour. The colour you like is guaranteed not to be liked by anyone else. Plus you need to find someone with the same window dimensions as you. So when ypu have the three main elements of soft furnishings against you ie, fashion, colour and size, they become virtually worthless. Sorry to say this but you will be lucky to get £50 for your £800 curtains.

But to the right person, taste could matter a great deal could it not? I agree the original price is irrelevant but as the buyer, I would actually be annoyed if they took them and so wanted them to leave these behind which they have agreed.

anandp

E.g. they've also got something that's like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/L-shape-sofa-bed/181884964128 which we've agreed to use ebay to get a value on. If something similar is on there, we'll price it accordingly.

davidmcn

Or to put it another way, the value is whatever difference their presence makes to the price paid for the house - which tends towards zero (bear in mind that many buyers would just intend to rip this stuff out anyway).

phill99

anandp wrote: »

But to the right person, taste could matter a great deal could it not? I agree the original price is irrelevant but as the buyer, I would actually be annoyed if they took them and so wanted them to leave these behind which they have agreed.

But you have hit the nail on the head: 'the right person'. That person who wants THAT colour, THAT style and has THAT window size is an exceedingly rare thing. It therefore becomes a buyers market and they will dictate the price.