Warning! Do not remove fixtures from a home before foreclosureToddMillerLasVegasTodd MillerReal Estate AgentAttorney Ryan Alexander Welcoem to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada Todd Miller TVTodd: Hello and welcome to Todd Miller TV. I’m downtown in the Law Offices of Ryan Alexander who is a prominent attorney here at Harvard Law guide knows this stuff really well and Ryan so we got this situation and it happens a lot and people probably need to know what they need to do in this specific situation so they are in a house, it is going to be foreclosed and they know it is going to be foreclosed and maybe when they have the house built, the had things put in they like a built-in oven, built-in fridge, you know ceiling fans and things like that.So what they do is the day before the trustees sail before the foreclosure. They go ahead and remove stuff from the house, flooring, ceiling fans, landscaping, ovens, talk about like legally, can anything happen to them?Ryan: Yes, in fact the things you can’t remove for your house are what we call fixtures. Anytime you install something in your house it becomes a fixture. It is part of the property the classic example of a ceiling fan and in law school when you go back, and you are talking at property class as a ceiling fan is a fixture an air conditioning unit is a fixture, furnaces, appliances that are installed into the property that is a fixture.What might not be a fixture is an appliance like a fridge that you can slide out and it is just plugged in to the wall, but certainly what I kind of use is a rule of thumb. If you had to drill it, bolt it, spackle it, paint it, or some how adhere it to your house it is probably a fixture. You can’t take a fixture out before the foreclosure happens. Todd: Even though you own— you technically own the house, you technically have title to those items, you just and what is that the intent is you are trying to deprive them from the person who is going to own it is that the concept or— ?Ryan: Yeah, that is part of the concept is that the person who is getting the house in a contract transaction is expecting the house to have the amenities that were installed with. I guess the best analogy is that if you bought a car and most people think of when they think of taking the fixtures back out, they think that they have taken the car and they have upgraded and what they are doing is taking the upgrades that they took put on to the car back off of the car before it goes, but in reality what you are doing is you might have upgraded things, but you have put new tires on a new hood.You have tinted the windows. You can’t take the windows off the car. You can’t sell a car that doesn’t have rubber wheels or rubber tires on the wheels or it doesn’t have a hood or lights if you put custom tail lights on. You can’t just take the lights out, you got to put the lights back in and refer it to be the vehicle so if that is like my best analogy I think to say you got it, that the people are expecting a home to have the heating and air conditioning or a large trees I know is another issue removing palm trees etcetera that they had bargained for in the short sale contract.Those fixtures and if you deliver the house that doesn’t have those you can get in trouble and I guess the word of warning right now is that I am defending even criminal cases for sellers of homes. There are in certain situations even when the home was sold during when as the home was being sold if things were removed in certain cases the police are pursuing charges of theft or fraud in those transactions and I have to defend sellers now who sold things against the prosecutors and against the courts. So it is possible it could be criminal or civil.Todd: Right.Ryan: It could be either civil and you would owe a money judgment to the buyer. You know, the buyer could sue you in court, but if the circumstances are close enough to the sale or just particular a bad enough in the view of a certain detective whoever gets that police report can say, “Hey, look I’m going to send this over to the district attorney for felony charges for theft or fraud” and that is perhaps a little rare, but it is happening and I do have clients in that situation.Todd: So if somebody needs help either civilly or criminally you can help them? Ryan: I can. Todd: How do they get in touch with you?Ryan: They can give me a call at (702) 868-3311 or they can email me at info@ryanalexander.us and I will give them a totally free consultation while I will go over with them, what can and can happen. And if they have a short sale contract I will leave and review that with them and tell them what the short sale contract says.Todd: Right. Ryan: And tell them what their options are within a short sale, and of course advice them of what they can and can’t remove from the property before they leave it.Todd: Any and it could be short sale or just a regular sale or any kind of transaction?Ryan: Any type of transaction.Todd: Good, well thank you very much.Ryan: Thank you Todd. That is the episode for today. Thanks for tuning in and I will see you on the next video.