Small Claims Case (Scotland) - House sellers removed EV charger from property

penners324

If the charger wasn't owned to the property seller how can it be considered a fixture & fitting?

Same principle with solar panels?

silvercar

penners324 said:

If the charger was bought through a salary sacrifice scheme then it's very likely the employer of the previous house owner was the legal owner of the charger. 

Thus they were told to remove it from the property as it's not their's.

The first sentence could very well be true. Whether that means they were told to remove it I’m less sure of. Usually the scheme works that they will supply and fit one charger. If you move they won’t fit another.

There are also situations where the chargers were fitted as part of car purchase deals before the cars actually arrived. There was a deadline of 31/3/2022 for the government grant for residential car chargers at the same time there was a long delay in getting hold of the cars due to shortage of chips. Some people definitely had their chargers fitted paid for by one manufacturer for a car order which subsequently was cancelled. The ownership of these chargers is debatable. 

user1977

penners324 said:

The charger didn't belong to the home owner, so no way is it getting refitted to the house.

That's the seller's problem though. It's still a breach of contract by them.

chanz4

if you dont have an electric car do you need it?

ThisIsWeird

The seller claims it was not part of the house as it was 'technically not theirs as it was bought through some scheme'.
I'd have thought that the first step would be for the seller to provide evidence of this. Perhaps the LbA should give them this opportunity; "produce evidence for your claim or else action will be taken to recover..."

Wasn't there was a thread about this exact same situation around a year ago? I wonder how that planned out?!

ProDave

Another way to tackle this is try and find the new address of the vendor, and the company that provided the grant to pay for the charger.  Then let that company know the vendor has nicked their charger and let them chase the vendor for a refund of the grant money paid.

ThisIsWeird

Ah, the other case was different - the CP was excluded from the sale: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6450647/vendor-uninstalling-ev-charging-point/p1

user1977

ThisIsWeird said:

The seller claims it was not part of the house as it was 'technically not theirs as it was bought through some scheme'.
I'd have thought that the first step would be for the seller to provide evidence of this. 

No, like I said above, it's the seller's problem if they don't own the items which they are contractually required to hand over to the buyer. In fact there's a separate warranty in the standard contract that they do own all the items in question:

"The Seller warrants that at the Date of Settlement all items included in the Price are owned by the Seller, are or will be free of all debt, and are not the subject of any litigation"

Section62

ProDave said:

Another way to tackle this is try and find the new address of the vendor, and the company that provided the grant to pay for the charger.  Then let that company know the vendor has nicked their charger and let them chase the vendor for a refund of the grant money paid.

Is that what the grant funder's contract said - that if the applicant moves they have to leave the charger with the property?  Have you seen the contract?

FreeBear

Section62 said:

ProDave said:

Another way to tackle this is try and find the new address of the vendor, and the company that provided the grant to pay for the charger.  Then let that company know the vendor has nicked their charger and let them chase the vendor for a refund of the grant money paid.

Is that what the grant funder's contract said - that if the applicant moves they have to leave the charger with the property?  Have you seen the contract?

I'm having a EV charging point installed and funded by the Motability scheme. Once fitted, it is mine to do with as I see fit. So I can take it with me if/when I move, or I can leave it behind. Should I leave the charging point behind, I will need to fund the installation of a new one at the next property (at a cost of around £1K). The alternative is to pay an electrician to remove the old one at an unspecified cost, and find another ~£500 for him to wire it up at the new house. The secondhand value of an EV charging point is minimal, and the likes of Motability are probably getting the things at a discounted price.

Note - I say "mine" and "I", but it is the property of the person getting the Motability car.