I'd actually go further. I do care about home automation, because it is almost certainly a negative and possibly a deal-breaker for me to put any offer in to buy a place.
If it has anything installed that has any form of off-site access or any dependency on a remote service then I am going to require the existing owner to remove it and make good at their own expense as a condition of any offer (other than possibly a suitably approved alarm system with clearly detailed monitoring arrangements and contacts).
Likewise if there is anything installed that relies on any sort of sensors or "smart" control systems, I am going to require credible written guarantees about the security, privacy, safety and longevity of that system, or far more likely it is again going to have to be removed and made good at the current owner's expense as a condition.
I say this because the systems that ADT, etc sell these days are largely made up of white labeled COTS Z-Wave sensors with the security panel just being a hub and interface to the Z-Wave network.
The house I moved into this past year is covered by sensors for an old ADT system that are useless to me, and I've been slowly removing them and replacing them with equivalent Z-Wave e.g., door and motion sensors as I get to it. Whenever I move, I'll take the hub with me. Any sensors that get left behind would be almost entirely equivalent to an old security system being left in the house except for the fact that they'd be pairable with any system the new owner decides to put in place since they're actually standards based.
No matter; I wasn't interested, and I was happy to get rid of all the their signs and stickers.
In fact, ADT's latest move seems to be piggybacking on Smart Things for HA, but... since I already have Smart Things what do I really need ADT for?
Zigbee is also fairly popular for some applications; it's what e.g., Philips Hue runs on.
Devices using either of these will generally pair with any hub with the appropriate radios like Smart Things.
There's additionally a class of home automation stuff that runs over WiFi; they more generally have proprietary communication protocols and I personally avoid them for the most part.
So, no smoke or CO2 alarms in your house?
It's like staging a home right? None of this furniture comes with the house but how it's staged absolutely influences your impression of the home.
So they're a good idea if you think it's very likely you'll stay in a house 15+ years, but not so much otherwise.
Even aesthetical changes are a big warning - this one has been somehow tampered with, and you have no clue what was changed and for what reason.
For example I bought some older BMW few years back. When i went for some complete checkup after cca 2 years, mechanic told me that car has been lowered a bit and brakes are some lightweight version. It was my first car and I didn't notice, and effin' dealer didn't mention it. All good but - lowered car has issue in places like underground parkings, where road is steep and sometimes I hit the bottom of the car when road bends too much. So because some idiot previous owner wanting to squeeze a bit extra driveability out of a diesel car (although amazing diesel it is), I now have these crappy consequences and have to drive carefully like with some ferrari. I've hit the bottom in various situations maybe 20x so far, maybe one day it will break something crucial and I will be left in some nasty situation with broken car.
Yeah, you want untampered (more) predictable stock cars.
That being said, if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it", where x is the cost for me to just buy new modules for my new place.
That sounds like a pain in the ass.
> if I was ever to leave home automation hardware behind, it'd be a "if you want to pay x on top of the already agreed upon price for the property, I'll leave it
I don't want to buy new crap to deal with the crap you left behind. I'd argue that you ought to pay me for dealing with some arbitrary hardware that I've now inherited. This is the equivalent of leaving some finicky boiler system whose spare parts can only be ordered from a single factory in Germany.
In context they are also more or less offering to remove it for free. I expect that includes putting conventional fixtures in (depending on the terms of the sale, but why bother trying to insist that the house doesn't come with light switches).
At my old condo, one thing I left as a bit of a 'gift', was a extremely solid dual-arm TV wall mount. It was cheap for me to repurchase for my new place, and then they don't have the risk of screwing into the studs near but not in the holes I had mounted mine or such concerns that might weaken their own mount. I had all the hardware and instructions, which I left with it. This might've been a less handy choice had either the condo been large enough for other places for the TV to make sense or be appealing, or if the TV mount I had installed wasn't sturdy enough to support all possible TVs one might be bringing in.
If you live in any major urban center that request would likely get laughed at since the value of your depreciated hardware likely wouldn't even count as a rounding error on the purchase price. Some buyers might even want a discount on your selling price because of the extra work they'd have to do to get rid of the gear.
Technically you can take the stove, fridge, washer, dryer, window coverings; but almost nobody does. The buyers realtor will automatically put a clause in the contract that they stay. It saves everybody the effort and cost of moving them, and generally the rest of the room matches them and not the new house. Sometimes this isn't done but that is rare.
Light bulbs are not in the contract, but they aren't worth the bother to remove.
Seems like there are two options. (1) You can do it the Dutch way, i.e. every time someone moves they'll have to take their floors out. Those floors often won't fit into your new apartment, so you're just creating lots of waste. Not to mention all the effort associated with it. You will have to remove the floors, but also the person moving into your place will have had to remove the floors from their old place. (2) You leave the floors in when you move out. Then the new tenant/owner can decide whether to keep them or not. In the worst case, both new and old inhabitant will still decide to remove the floors. In the best case, no one will have to do anything and no waste is created.
So what could possibly be gained from the first way of doing things? Genuinely curious if someone knows the reasoning behind this.
Haha I was not...people literally take the floor laminates with them when they leave, if not to reuse them but out of some sense of ownership I don't fully grasp.
Apartments are rented in a few ways: fully furnished (incl. floors and all the furnishings and even kitchen stuff) which is aimed at expats who make lots of money and people who are living short term; partially furnished (maybe including floors and some appliances or fittings, for which you'll pay a regulated monthly fee), or bare, which is as it suggests without fittings and without floor coverings. The latter is cheapest and most common I think.
I've heard that sometimes you can make a deal with the leaving tenants if you'd like to keep their existing floors (for a price, of course!). People here seem rather adept and used to installing the laminate themselves, and they also seem to like the idea that you can put down whichever floor covering you like best.
It must be a good business to sell floor laminate...
Most sellers will leave anything fixed to the building like lights, sinks, toilets, doors, door handles, sockets, fitted carpets, fitted kitchen appliances, plants that are buried in the garden, fires and fireplaces, television aerials, boilers and radiators, built-in cupboards, permanently installed mirrors, and so on.
Things that aren't fixed in quite the same way have different conventions. For example paintings, light shades, freestanding lamps, rugs, curtains, plants in freestanding tubs, and freestanding appliances are often taken by the seller.
It's always possible to negotiate, of course; if the buyer and seller agree on something different, that's perfectly legal. And there are horror stories of overly trusting buyers discovering the seller has removed the turf from the lawn, and things like that.
All we had were some sockets in the ceiling into which you'll fasten your own bulb-holders/shades, and then your own bulbs.
The only lighting present by default was that above the bathroom mirror(s).
If you say "fixtures stay in the house" then they stay. If not, no obligation to leave them. Typically, however, these clauses deal primarily with appliances and other larger items (TVs, hot tubs, etc)
In my experience people don't think to bring the bulbs with them, written or otherwise.
Perhaps you are thinking of rent?