What Stays With the Home That You Are Selling in South Florida?

What Stays With the Home That You Are Selling in South Florida?

When you are selling your home in South Florida you should make a list of all the items that you are going to take with you.

This list should be given to your real estate agent and we suggest that it also is added to your property flyer that you leave in your home for prospective buyers to take with them after they tour your house.

When you go into contract with a buyer you should list all the items that are excluded from the sale of your property. Remember that buyers can not read your mind. Also, things talked about verbally through interactions can be forgotten or misunderstood. Have everything in writing.

The rule of thumb we go by is that anything that is attached to the house goes with the house when it is sold. But just the word, “attached” is left up to the interpretations of each person and what you consider NOT attached a buyer may consider attached.

The courts are mixed on this as well so it is better to take care of all of this before you even put your house up for sale. You don’t want to go down the court road.

Also, many people think that if you buy a house and then add something like a wet bar after you buy the house, the wet bar is not really attached when you physically attached it to the house because it was after you bought the house.

But a buyer does not even know the wet bar was put in after you bought the house. The buyer will most likely assume that the wet bar is attached and is staying with the house.

Make sure you read the MLS report that is submitted by your agent to see what is included. If there is something in the MLS report that you are taking with you but you or your agent is advertising you need to remove that from the MLS right away. You can also add your exclusions in the MLS so that there is further evidence in trying to be upfront about what is going and what is staying.

One court in Washington D.C in 1982 ruled that, ” … when determining whether an article is a fixture, the court may consider three factors:

1. Actual annexation according to the nature and use of the article

2. Its adaptation to the use for which it is annexed and

3. The intention that it should a permanent accession to the realty.

If you have a nice chandelier in your dining room and that is attached to a ceiling electrical box above the dining room table, you can take that chandelier with you so long as you replace it with a substitute. You also in this case have to make sure that you reinstall it safely with no loose wires and no damage to the ceiling.

BUT it is SO much easier just to remove the chandelier before you put your home up for sale and do the substitution. We see so many arguments over lighting fixtures and it really is a stressful time when you are selling your house. It really is not worth the argument so why not eliminate the argument in the first place.

Artwork is another area of contention and misunderstandings. Of course, nice artwork in your house helps to sell your house so making it known up front in writing that you are keeping your artwork is the easiest way to eliminate misunderstandings. Some sellers will even put little stickies around the artwork with a note saying, “stays with the house” and “does NOT stay with the house”.

You do need to fill, patch and smooth in the holes the artwork being attached leave behind.

A wet bar is assumed to be attached to your property. Built in shelves in closets are considered to be attached to your property. This is yet another area of contention. Please make sure the buyers know when they tour your house that you are taking the closet shelves if that is what you are planning to do.

Take into account the local customs but also the customs of the area where your buyer is moving from. For instance, homeowners in most of Europe take their kitchen cabinets with them when they move. Most cabinets are not attached like we attach them here in the U.S.

We sell a lot of homes here in South Florida fully furnished, toothbrush ready to move into. In these situations it is very important to leave an itemized list of all the inventory of the house that you are leaving as furnished. What one buyer thinks is fully furnished may not mean the same thing to you.

One of the biggest areas of contention with fully furnished properties is that in most cases you are taking your cars with you when you move. There are buyers who really believe that you are leaving your cars with the sale.

This is further complicated with the contract for sale where it states that the house must be delivered to the buyer in the same way as when the buyer first saw the house. If you had your cars in your garage on the day of the showing the buyer may well interpret that to mean they are staying with the rest of your furnishings.

We suggest to park your cars somewhere else outside of your garage during showings to alleviate this misunderstanding from ever surfacing in the first place.

It won’t hurt to also provide exclusions on your inventory list. Remember that many times these things don’t even come up until you are in the middle of negotiations when tensions are high. We see offers go sour very quickly over misunderstandings about what is staying with the house and what is not.

Deliver this list up front before the buyer makes an offer so that you have nipped their ability to start playing hardball in the negotiations with you. We see so many times where buyers place an unreasonable value on items they want to stay that are not disclosed until negotiations. Don’t wait that long.

Note: We are not attorneys and this article is for informational purposes only not to be construed as legal advice.

Contact Nestor Gasset today on his mobile number at 561-541-9936 to get started on getting your home on the market and sold!

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