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When you are buying or selling a house and the current owner has run speaker wires through the walls for their surround sound system, is it typically assumed that will stay or go? Not sure if it matters or note, but the wiring in this instance came with the the system (boise). It isn't mandatory that the wires be run through the walls, but it was how it's frequently done. It's not a house that was prewired for surround sound.
This became an issue for us in a recent sale/purchase and wanted real estate professional's thoughts to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
Check the connections! I see a lot of people saying what is and isn't part of the house and putting out their personal opinions on the wires. In the case of Bose, some of their wires are proprietary in either the wiring itself or the connectors. Some Sony and other manufacturer systems are like this too. The wires may be unique to that particular system and therefore components of it and not the house. If they're just using the standard red/black connectors then the wiring probably will stay. If the connectors are proprietary then you need to have a conversation with the owner. Those wires are not cheap, particularly when it's Bose! Sometimes you can't even get those anymore. If I were the seller I would be taking proprietary wires with me. However, I would run some fishing line or other strong line through so the buyer could run their own wires easily once mine were out. If the wires are standard red/black connectors then there's no need to replace.
In most real estate law, a chattel (personal property) becomes real property when it is permanently attached to, installed into, or planted on real property. So a pencil sharpener fastened to the wall usually becomes real property.
When I built my media room, I used standard National Electrical Code methods to build the class 2 cables into the walls. They could not possibly be removed without taking the panels off the walls. They are fixtures and must stay. But since the speakers are hung on mountings, they are chattels and may be removed.
The mountings the speakers are hung on are another matter. In my case, the ones on the wall are useless without the ones screwed to the speakers and the ones on the speakers are useless without the ones on the wall. They fit together to hang the speakers solidly. So either both should stay or both should go. The ones on the wall are screwed to the wall with wood screws.
In the case of a TV mount, the mount is screwed to the wall, but the television is not.
Often the speakers. wiring, and amplifier are part of an integrated system that becomes useless if not used together. An agreement is necessary at that point.
In my area, it wouldn't even be a question that speaker wire inside the walls stays with the house. Our standard MLS contract has "attached speakers" as an option for "included items" so if it's missed on the contract the respective agent didn't a good enough job covering the terms of the contract with their clients.
I commented that this thread is very old. If someone was looking for information about a similar issue, they should have created a new thread instead. It was odd opening an old thread to ask, add additional information or to comment on a thread created more than a decade ago.
Check the connections! I see a lot of people saying what is and isn't part of the house and putting out their personal opinions on the wires. In the case of Bose, some of their wires are proprietary in either the wiring itself or the connectors. ...
I assure you that speaker wires are NOT proprietary. They are multi strand copper wires of some gauge.
You can buy the exact same wire hundreds of feet at a time from any electrical supply house.
As to connectors, it's highly unlikely there are any connectors you can't source in an hour from Allied Digi-Key or Newark. And if some manufacturer has gone to the trouble of creating a (totally unnecessary) new connector design, you just buy a few from them and make up pigtails with their special exotic connector on one end and a standard connector (RCA, 1/4 plug, Speak-On, or equiv.) on the other end, and never think of it again.
I think a lot of this stuff is made up by companies to fool people who don't know a soldering iron from a clothes iron into buying a bunch of overpriced "proprietary" stuff at a premium that any EE knows they can buy for a tenth of the price elsewhere.
I commented that this thread is very old. If someone was looking for information about a similar issue, they should have created a new thread instead. It was odd opening an old thread to ask, add additional information or to comment on a thread created more than a decade ago.
I don't remember asking for your opinion either.
Reading comprehension 101. They weren't responding to you...
Everyone keeps saying the speakers leave with the seller, but I've seen several new houses where the speakers are built-in. If the speakers are built-in, they stay with the house.
Wiring stays unless it is laying loose.
Proprietary connections or not, if you need special connectors, you can buy more of them. You don't pull wires out of the wall because they have proprietary connectors.
If it is important to you, put it in the offer or counter offer. Don't assume.
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