If the appliances don’t work when you move in, It could be an honest mistake, and many home sellers will volunteer to make things right.
Functioning appliances on the possession date (the day you get the key) are covered under included items. When we negotiate your offer, we’ll negotiate a list of exclusions and inclusions(what goes and what stays with the house). You might think this is counterintuitive, but we must add appliances to your contract. By default, the BCREA standard real estate offer contract excludes appliances, so we must add appliances individually.
So who is responsible if the appliances don’t work when you move in, you or the seller? While we always recommend adding appliances in working order to your offer, a seller may have removed this during negotiations. And if that’s the case, there is little further you can do. On the other hand, if the appliances don’t work when you move in, and it was part of the agreement, we’ll need to contact the seller and give them an opportunity to fix things.
You may have heard scary stories of unscrupulous sellers, but it’s very rare. Most sellers earnestly want to leave you, your new home, in great shape. The tricky part is when the home seller is unwilling to do anything. Then your only path forward is the legal system to start a claim against the previous homeowner.
This doesn’t just go for appliances; any included items may also fall into this category. Remember that buying a home is different from renting because there’s no deposit held for damages. The expectation is that the seller passes on the house to you in the condition agreed to after you’ve already paid for it. When things don’t go smoothly, you’d have to go back to the seller after the fact.
