Real Estate Agent with Select Realty Professionals
Speaking from the point of view of your light bulbs, that is.
The standard contract used by all Realtors in Tennessee says that all of these things stay with the home, no matter how attached the seller may be to them:
All attached light fixtures and bulbs including ceiling fans; permanently attached plate glass mirrors; heating, cooling, and plumbing fixtures and equipment; all doors, storm doors and windows; all window treatments (e.g. shutters, blinds, shades, curtains, draperies) and hardware; all wall to-wall carpet; range; all built-in kitchen appliances; all bathroom fixtures and bathroom mirrors; all gas logs, fireplace doors and attached screens; all security system components and controls; garage door opener and all (at least ____) remote controls; swimming pool and its equipment; awnings; permanently installed outdoor cooking grills; all landscaping and all outdoor lighting; mailbox(es); attached basketball goals and backboards; TV antennae and satellite dishes (excluding components); and central vacuum systems and attachments.
Yes, there's even a blank for how many garage door remotes are going to be left behind after closing.
If there's something in the house that isn't covered by that little list up there, the basic test as to whether it should stay or go is whether it is 'attached' or 'built in' to the house. If it takes a crow bar, screwdriver or shovel to remove it, your buyer will be able to make a pretty darn good case that it belongs to them once they buy the house.
That means all those speakers with the wires running through the walls should stay. Auntie Mildred's prized stained-glass light fixture should stay. The 72" flat screen TV that you oh, so cleverly mounted to the fireplace should stay. Great-grandmama's roses that you lovingly planted in your front yard should stay. Getting the idea?
The corollary of that for buyers is that the refrigerator doesn't stay. The washer and dryer? Never gonna get it. The chunk of testosterone that is a 60" deck riding lawn mower goes with the seller when she moves.
As a seller, what should you do if you paid $1742.35 for the custom draperies in your master bedroom? Take them down. Buy something inexpensive (not cheap!) to put up in their place.
And what if it's something that can't really be temporarily removed? When my sister and I sold a house that we owned together, we specified both in the listing AND in the sales contract that we reserved the right to dig up some of the purple iris that our mom had trans-planted from our great-grandmother's homestead up on Mobray Mountain. Luckily it had spread enough that it really needed some thinning anyway and the new buyer was A-OK with it. If we had just dug up that whole gorgeous sea of purple flowers, it might not have gone over so well.
The moral of this story is that if you're selling your house and there's something that you can't bear to part with, take it down before the pictures go up in the MLS. The buyer won't miss what wasn't there to begin with.
Speaking from the point of view of your light bulbs, that is.
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