Wired into a Werribee garage, the charger is not part of the car.
If your car has charged in the same spot every night since the day it arrived, off a box that went in with the build or beside the panels, this is the page for it.
The question here is never where it charged. It is which parts of that setup are yours to hand over, and we would rather ask now than in your driveway.
- Or bring it to Thomastown
- Australia wide
- Finance settled directly
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The box on the wall
The car drives away and the charger does not
Nothing about this counts against the car or moves the offer around. It is one decision, and it is far easier made now than with somebody waiting.
The garage was finished at about the same time as the car was collected. The box went up on the wall while the trades were still coming and going, wired into the switchboard along with everything else, and after that nobody gave it another thought. It is simply where the car sleeps. Years of ordinary use later that is exactly why it gets missed: a thing you stopped noticing is a thing you forget to mention, and this one is worth mentioning.
When the car goes up for sale everybody quietly assumes the charger is the car's charger. It is not. It is fixed to a wall and wired into a house, and unless somebody decides otherwise it stays where it is. That is a perfectly good outcome. So is unbolting it and taking it with you. So is selling it to us along with the car. What causes trouble is nobody choosing, because then the question surfaces on the day, with an inspector standing there and three people guessing at the answer.
There are a handful of versions of this worth sorting out at the start. It might not be yours at all, if you are renting or if it was already there when you moved in. It might have arrived through work rather than out of your own pocket, the way it often does on a car that came through a salary package, and then the question is who has to be asked rather than what it is worth. And if it charges off the roof in the middle of the day, some of what makes the arrangement work may be the inverter it talks to, which is staying behind. None of that puts us off. All of it decides what gets written down.
Before the inspector arrives
What we ask about a car that charges at home
There is no wrong answer to any of these. Between them they decide what is written down as coming with the car, which is where people leave money.
- Whose is the box on the wall?
- Yours, the owner's if you are renting, or something that was already there when you moved in and has never come up since. This is not a test and there is nothing to get wrong. It decides one thing only, which is whether the charger is part of what we are buying or part of the house we leave alone.
- Was it wired in by an electrician, and is there anything in writing?
- If yours was wired in rather than plugged in, taking it off a wall is a job rather than a decision. If an invoice or a certificate is sitting in a drawer somewhere, now is the time to find it. It matters a great deal if the box is coming with the car and almost not at all if it is staying.
- Did it arrive on the same paperwork as the car?
- Sometimes the charger and the car turned up together, from the same place, as one deal. Worth saying out loud when it happened, because it changes whether it is yours to hand over and it can change who we need to speak to before anything is agreed.
- Is the house on the market as well?
- Say so on the first call. A charger that has already been counted in with the house is not one you can also sell with the car, and working that out twice is worse than working it out once. It also tells us how much room there is around your dates.
- Does it charge off the roof during the day, or overnight?
- Both are completely ordinary and neither is worth more than the other to us. The useful half of the answer is where the timing actually lives, in the box itself or somewhere in the house, because a charger losing the system it used to talk to is a different thing to hand over than one that simply works wherever it is put.
However it turns out
Three things the charger does not change
- Nothing on the wall is assumed either way. We price what you tell us is coming and we leave the rest exactly where it is. A charger that stays is not a deduction, and one that comes with the car is not a favour you are doing us.
- The visit happens in your garage. There is no need to move the car, clear a driveway or take a day off work. The inspector comes to your home or your work, reads the battery in front of you, and the paperwork is signed on your phone.
- A loan behind the car changes none of this. We ask your financier what it takes to close the contract out and pay them directly, novated leases and negative equity included, with any shortfall written down before you sign anything.
We work out of 374 Settlement Rd, Thomastown VIC 3074. The inspector comes to you, and if you would rather bring the car to us instead, you are welcome to.
The awkward ones
Three questions this tends to bring up
The wall box was already here when we bought the house. Is it mine to sell?
That one sits between you and the paperwork on the house rather than anywhere we can answer from. The practical version is easier. If you are not sure, leave it out of the conversation and we price the car on its own, which changes nothing about the offer or the inspection. If it turns out to be yours after all, say so and we look at it then.
We are selling the house at the same time. Does that make this harder?
No, it changes the order rather than the difficulty. Tell us on the first call that both are moving and we work to your dates instead of ours. The one thing worth deciding early is the charger, because it is the only item here that can quietly end up promised to two people at once.
Can I have the charger taken off the wall and keep it?
You can, and whether it is a small job or an awkward one is a question for an electrician rather than for us. All we ask is that you decide before the inspector arrives. A box that is staying costs you nothing on the day. A box you make your mind up about afterwards is the version that costs everybody an afternoon.
The car first. Whatever is on the wall is a decision, not a problem.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.