Fixtures

Personal property is a type of property. In the common law systems personal property may also be called chattel. It is distinguished from real property, or real estate. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property or movables – any property that can be moved from one location to another. This term is in distinction with immovable property, such as land and buildings.

A fixture is a chattel which by being incorporated or attached to the real estate becomes a permanent part of the realty. For example, a brick is a chattel, but this same brick being incorprated into a wall of a structure of habitation becomes part of the real property, and thus no longer personal property.

A CLANCCO sculpture is also a chattel, which will become a fixture when attached to the real estate, thus becoming part of the realty.

Lore has it that a few years ago a house was sold and one of its main features was a beautiful rose garden. It was sold in the summer when the roses were blooming at their best.

However, the home seller understood the law of fixtures. She had planted the beautiful rose bushes in large pots buried in the ground. The day of the sale closing, the seller’s gardener removed all the beautiful rose bush plants.

Needless to say, the buyer was shocked to find the bare former rose garden with lots of holes in the ground where the pots formerly rested.

Plants and trees growing in the ground are considered to be fixtures, which are included in the sale of real estate because they are attached to the ground by roots.

But the seller was entitled to remove those beautiful rose bushes, although they were quite large, because they were still in their large pots so the roots never legally became attached to the ground.