New owners have the right to fixtures like ceiling fans

Q. We recently sold our house and took the ceiling fans that we had bought. But now the new owner wants them back. These did not come with the house. We bought them. Is this right? Because it seems absurd to me.

A. While there are exceptions, the general rule is that anything permanently attached is legally considered a fixture and becomes part of the real estate. If you wanted to take the fans, prospective buyers should have been notified in your listing information, and it could have been noted as an exception in your sales contract. Sorry, but the buyers are in the right.

The fact that you bought those fans doesn't matter. After all, you might have put in wall-to-wall carpeting or a new towel rack, but that wouldn't entitle you to take them when you left. The buyers have the right to receive the house as it was when they saw it, not as you originally bought it.

If there's something homeowners intend to remove (classically, it's the dining-room chandelier), the easiest solution is to replace it before potential buyers view the house. What they don't see, they can't argue about.

Q. My son purchased some land in 1998 for $18,950. The owner financed this at 9.5 percent and it would be paid off in August 2013. Wanting to help my son, I paid off the loan early in August 2010.

I know it was foolish of me to pay the extra interest. My husband figured out the interest that would have been charged if the contract had ended in 2010. Interest for 140 months equals $12,470. The interest I paid for 176 months was $16,221, creating a difference of $3,750.

I have written letters to the former owner, but I haven't heard from him. Do you think I should hire a lawyer? Or am I working a dead horse?

A. To pay off the mortgage, you should have sent the lender the debt that remained last August. Assuming that was an amortized (gradually paid-off) mortgage with monthly payments including principal and interest that would have been around $5,400. If that's what you sent, fine, but perhaps you mistakenly sent three more years of monthly payments. Yes, that would have included interest on a loan already paid off.

If so, take all your papers to an accountant, who can give you the right figures. With so much less being borrowed at that point, the last three years worth of payments would have gone largely to pay off the debt. An amortization schedule I used on the Internet indicates the extra interest portions totaled less than $1,000. You could always sue for that in small claims court.

Q. Recently, we rented our property through a rental agency. When the tenants moved, they left expensive furniture worth a significant amount. They moved out of state and probably thought it wasn't worth moving them.

We told our agent not to do anything with it. But when we visited a couple of days later, they were gone. We were first told it was given to a charity. When asked to produce a receipt, the story was changed to dumping them, but they could not tell who dumped them.

Our feeling is the agent sold them and pocketed the money possibly, the agent does it chronically. If that is the case, we are interested in preventing such acts to other leasers. How do we go about trying to achieve this effect?

A. Talk to the police and to your insurance company. Then find out if that rental agency has a license. If so, lodge your complaint with the state authority that administers licenses. If the rental agency belongs to the local Association of Realtors, complain there, too. And there's always small claims court, where you can tell your story at little or no cost and see what a judge has to say. It would help if you had pictures to show what you're concerned about.

Q. I am in the process of purchasing a home. I was prequalified for a $244,000 loan. I am in the process of trying to close, but it seems that the lender has suddenly gotten cold feet.

I qualified based on my last two W-2 forms and last four pay stubs. Now the lender wants to use my adjusted gross income from my tax return, since I itemize deductions. With the way that works, I may not qualify. All my agent could tell me is that FHA has gotten stricter with their lending standards.

A. All I can tell you is that FHA has become stricter with their lending standards.

Ÿ Edith Lank will respond to questions sent to her at 240 Hemingway Drive, Rochester, N.Y. 14620 (please include a stamped return envelope), or readers may e-mail her at ehlank@aol.com.

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