What does Fixtures mean?

When you are buying a property, on the contract of the house buying you will find the “fixtures” column which contains those items that come together with the property which are usually not movable. These “fixed” may include plumbing installation, heating installation, lighting and many others.

Generally every item which is fixed with the help of tools on a property will not be removed, it becomes part of the property and it will be sold as a unity. However, pertaining to real estate law a fixture can also be a neighboring building next to the house itself for example, because this is not a movable item. It is not considered a fixture only it is stated in the contract that the respective building (a garage or a workshop building for example) is subject to be sold separately from the house.

This is why it is very important that you thoroughly discuss and analyze items pertaining to fixtures when you are buying a house, and you can do this by consulting the conveyancer usually. In the case of mortgages, you have to be careful, because given the fact the lender also has an interest in your property up until you make the last payment on your mortgage, he might put the condition that you are not allowed to move/demolish/bring any changes to the fixtures attached to the property.

You want to sort this problem out, as it this kind of conditions might not appeal to you (i.e. you’d like to demolish the workshop which is of no use to you and on the same spot you’d like having a greenhouse for example).