The question of floodlights as fixtures and fittings

[Raebet]

Can anyone please help me. I am the secretary of a members only Club which until April of this year hosted a senior football team. The team erected floodlights on our land in 1998. We have offered to buy these flood lights from them but they are determined they are going to remove them. We have been told that as they are on our land and have been for over 9 years they are classed as fixtures and fittings and therefore now belong to us. Is this right? The football club has used them since they were erected until April of this year.

[boxtops]

My view is that they belong to the team - they are not part of any building which belongs to you, they are not a permanent fixture. I would regard them as part of tenants' fixtures & fittings. Certainly this applies to the community theatre in which I am involved - we bought the lights, we fixed them, we own them. I've never heard of a 9-year rule for automatic transfer of ownership of an F&F item.

[bednobs]

i think you have answered your own question -if you offered to buy them, then you can't possibly think they belong to you - why would you buy your own stuff?