How to keep the seller from taking items from a house: Episode #268

Hello! Welcome to Todd Miller TV. Today’s video is on: What happens to those things in the house that aren’t written on the purchase agreement? Like who gets them? So, I’ll give you an example. Buyer walks through a house, they see everything in it, and then they write up a purchase agreement, and in the purchase agreement this is block, this is picture of some personal property, and all the things are written in there. Specifically blinds, and window coverings, and ceiling fans, electrical outlets, and electrical systems, and water systems and all those other stuff. So the what happens is, the seller moves out, you own the house, you go in and you go “Hey, wait a minute, that thing disappeared or this thing is different than it was.” How do you deal with that? So, the first thing to do is, after the sellers have moved out, just before close of escrow, do a walk-through. If you do a walk-through right before the close of escrow, you’ll be able to see anything that’s changed. And if you say,”Hey wait a minute, that ceiling fan is not the same one that they had before. They’ve replaced it with a cheaper one and taken the nice one. You can just tell Escrow “Hey, hold off on the sale. Don’t transfer the property. Don’t give them our money. We wanted now time to negotiate back that/get that fan back. ‘Cause you know, or settle it somehow.” That’ really the best way to do it. There’s not gonna be a perfect solution. I’ll give you an example, there is ambiguity in what can sometimes stay with the house. Like for example, let’s say you go in the bathroom, and you see like the mirror is stuck on the wall, those stand to stay because that’s affixed to the house. But then you may see somewhere in the house there was a decorative mirror, but the decorative mirror might have been hanging on a nail. So the intent was, it wasn’t permanent which was hanging on a nail like a picture but it was just a mirror. So you may think “Oh, that’s a beautiful mirror” that it stays, but maybe it doesn’t, maybe it goes. And it could be the same for some chandeliers or some other things. There was an instance I remember a bunch of years ago where they/the people had a really nice beautiful ceiling fan. It was hand-carved. it was amazing. And they never said anything. And what happen was when they moved out they pulled it off and they put a $15 one from Home Depot on there. And the buyers moved in and said “This is an amazing room, where did that ceiling fan go? We really liked it.” So we had this dispute because the seller took it and you know, they said “Well we’ve left a ceiling fan like contract says, ceiling fan.” So as a general rule, if you do 2 things you’re gonna be safe. One is, if you have any doubt as a buyer or seller,make sure it’s in writing. Say “Hey this specific item, and if it’s a/something like a refrigerator.” And the say “Yeah, it’s gonna stay.” Put in there, Refrigerator, you know Jet-Aire, this model number, stainless steel, be very specific so they don’t pull it out and replace with something else. So if you’re very specific, you put it in writing. The second thing is, just before the close of escrow, do a walk-through once they have left the house. Make sure everything’s great. And then you can run down, sign everything, close escrow, and then take possession of the house and you should be good. So anyway, and then ofcourse if you can’t resolve it that way, you can mediate it or do whatever. So, I thought I would share that with you ’cause that’s something that we see quite often. Especially when a person moves out and you know, typically we don’t have this problem with bank owned homes but anyway. So, that is my update for today and hope to see you on another video. Thanks!

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