Taking shelves when moving house

[legfaced]

We are due to move in a few months. We have long and quite expensive scaffold board shelving in our kitchen - AIBU to take it with us when we move?

Some people take the actual light bulbs with them! Can you contact your solicitor just to make sure that the buyers know that shelving won’t be left behind - at least then there can be no legal comeback. Sounds petty, but would save hassle in the long run. But, if they are your shelves then you are allowed to take them to your new house!

An entire wall in my bedroom is old scaffold boards, the headboard of my bed is as well.

The boards cost me £240, I can’t remember the exact measurements but the wall is about 4m x 3m (high ceiling). They just need a quick sand and an oil when cut to size. So I’m not sure how a couple of shelves could be expensive.

Whatever the rules I think leave them if to take them would fundamentally alter the kitchen. We will leave our bathroom cabinet as it is intrinsic to the look, even though it could be taken as it is not part of the fitted bathroom as such (a separately sourced, hand painted piece of furniture)

Pictures / mirrors etc. are not nailed or screwed to the wall. Shelves are. Umm @ReceptacleForTheRespectable I'm not sure how you attach your pictures and mirrors, but most of ours ARE screwed to the walls. They are too heavy to just 'hang'.

@FlamingoQueen we took the light bulbs. But they are 'smart bulb' which will only work with the router bridge we have (or if the new owners bought one) so we took all the light bulbs, light switches and google assistants with us. We did however replace them with ordinary bulbs and light switches! We didn't leave them in the dark.

I think it's fine to take plants out of the garden if you've nurtured them. New owners usually RIP out plants and redo gardens anyway. Noone buys a house based on a rose Bush in the garden.

Legally, however, it is NOT fine to do this. You can take pots but you cannot dig up plants, unless you have explicitly agreed this with the new owner.

Also, I don't know any new house owners who immediately want to rip up their new garden and replant it. Maybe a few years down the line they might redo some of it to suit their own needs better, but no one wants to live with a pile of empty mud until then.

Oh, and a good garden is often a strong selling point.

I wouldn't consider shelves to be built in and I wouldn't have an issue taking them with me, maybe thats just me?

When we last moved our seller took down all the shelves and it didn't occur to me that it was an issue. Our insane buyer did complain that we'd taken down pictures on the wall in the front room, leaving the hooks in the wall and we needed to replace them or reimburse her for buying new pictures (they were our family photos). She also decided she wanted to replace the boiler 8 months after she moved in and wrote to us via her solicitor telling us we needed to pay for her new boiler.

We took our two expensive shelves and replaced the whole lot with no missing paint or holes in the walls. We had spent a fortune on roses so the summer before we potted then and then told the buyer we were taking pots.
Moving day everyone happy.
Take the shelves but replace them.

Our sellers took teo kitchen shelves. Leaving 4 massive holes in the kitchen wall which we have had to cover with a very oddly placed picture as it's a big room with high ceilings and repainting will be a massive job. Covering up those missing shelves will cost us hundreds of pounds

YABU if the buyers have already seen the kitchen with the shelves and they aren't explicitly excluded in your fixtures and fittings. A buyer will otherwise assume they're staying. This is exactly the sort of thing that can sour a sale btw.

YANBU if you have yet to agree a purchase price and you make it clear you are taking them with you.

We once bought a house where the sellers removed every single light fitting, the dustbin, the TV amplifier and removed the tiles in the downstairs bathroom. On the day of removals, they even tried to dismantle the wrought iron balustrade! We stopped them, fortunately.

When we found they hadn't bothered to redirect their mail, we refused to forward it and returned it all back to the sender.

Well either this is extensive shelving so clearly A big part of the kitchen and shouldn’t be removed, or it’s a couple of shelves worth about a tenner and the op is giving her house the side eye wondering just how bare she can strip it.

Sadly some folks do that. Even if they don’t need the stuff they are taking and can’t use it,

OP you obviously don’t think you are being unreasonable so why are you asking?

When you put a house up for sale you have to fill in an inventory stating what is a fixture and what is not - blinds and curtains and shelves and light fittings all have to be logged down on the inventory if you are leaving them behind.

Some people have been known to remove expensive taps and replace them with cheap ones, so the inventory is there to protect both seller and buyer.

If the shelves were not on the inventory it would be polite to tell the new house owner that you are taking them and making good the wall behind.

I think it's fine to take plants out of the garden if you've nurtured them. New owners usually RIP out plants and redo gardens anyway. Noone buys a house based on a rose Bush in the garden.

I'd be livid if a seller dug up plants without agreeing this. I've never ripped out existing plants and replaced them. A good garden is often what makes a house attractive to buy. Our current house, for example, has a fabulous garden which is at least 50% of why we decided to buy it.

@BlusteryLake

As long as you make it clear on the fixtures and fittings list that is fine. It isn't automatic that anything fixed to the wall comes with the house, that's why the fixtures and fittings list exists.

Exactly - as long as it's specified it's fine. We are taking a shelving unit but DH has filled in and painted the holes so it looks nice and the new owner doesn't have to do it

OP you obviously don’t think you are being unreasonable so why are you asking?

Because she wants to?

Just send a message to your solicitor that you are taking these shelves and they will update the fixtures And fittings form. We took our oak hall shelf with us but made it clear on the f&f firm - no problem.

But jaxhog plants are like things in your drawers, they belong to the person, not the house. I'd definately be taking plants and digging up bulbs and taking them with me if I moved. I wouldnt extend that to sturdy trees or bushes but definately bulbs and flowering plants or rose bushes. Most people do this, dont they?

Mirrors and pictures are not permanantly attached to the wall. Shelves are.

My mirrors, pictures and shelves are all attached to my walls in the same or similar methods, doesn't mean I'm selling my family photos when I put my house up for sale.

Number of people making up any old shite in here I see.

Pictures and mirrors are not fixtures and fittings unless a mirror is glued to the wall as in a bathroom.

If I were going to take plants I would agree that with the buyers in advance.

@NotShiny

But jaxhog plants are like things in your drawers, they belong to the person, not the house. I'd definately be taking plants and digging up bulbs and taking them with me if I moved. I wouldnt extend that to sturdy trees or bushes but definately bulbs and flowering plants or rose bushes. Most people do this, dont they?

Digging up bulbs? Really, really no. They don't.

Legally, however, it is NOT fine to do this. You can take pots but you cannot dig up plants, unless you have explicitly agreed this with the new owner.

Really? Why do you have to agree it with the new owner? Can you not just say, I'm taking these plants with me? If I'd never planted them in the first place then they wouldn't have them so what's the difference.

I would just remove all my favourite plants and put them in pots ready for the move, then. No way would I be leaving my sentimental and expensive plants behind.

@NotShiny

But jaxhog plants are like things in your drawers, they belong to the person, not the house. I'd definately be taking plants and digging up bulbs and taking them with me if I moved. I wouldnt extend that to sturdy trees or bushes but definately bulbs and flowering plants or rose bushes. Most people do this, dont they?

Have you ever sold a house?