Fixtures vs Fittings: What You Can Take When You Move Out

This is the argument that quietly decides more Singapore deposit outcomes than fair wear and tear does. A tenant unscrews the S$900 bidet they installed and the landlord deducts for the exposed plumbing point. A landlord insists the built-in shoe cabinet stays, and the tenant is still charged S$150 to S$400 to take it out. Both sides are half right, and the tenancy agreement usually does not say. Here is the actual rule, and the cost of getting it wrong.

What is the difference between a fixture and a fitting in a Singapore tenancy?

The distinction matters because it decides ownership, not just tidiness. A fitting is your movable property throughout: you brought it in, you take it out, nobody needs to agree. A fixture is treated in law as part of the land itself, so it belongs to the owner of the land, regardless of who bought it or how much it cost.

Singapore tenancy agreements make this worse rather than better. Most contain an inventory annexure listing what the landlord provided, and a reinstatement clause requiring you to return the unit in its original condition, fair wear and tear excepted. Very few say anything about what happens to the things you added. The Council for Estate Agencies publishes standard tenancy agreement templates for both HDB flats and private residential property, and the inventory annexure in them is the single most useful page in the document, if it is actually filled in.

How do Singapore courts decide whether something is a fixture?

The Court of Appeal noted there are "many formulations or tests for deciding whether a chattel is a fixture". In practice they collapse into two questions a contractor and a landlord can both answer on site.

1. How firmly is it attached? Resting under its own weight points to a fitting. Screwed, bolted, tiled in, plumbed in or hard-wired points to a fixture. The stronger the attachment, and the more damage removal would cause, the more likely it is a fixture.
2. Why was it attached? If the attachment exists only so the item can be used and enjoyed as an object, it stays a chattel. If it exists to permanently improve the property, it has become a fixture.

The second question is the one that decides real cases. In Riduan, alterations made purely so the premises could be operated as a kindergarten were held to be the tenant's fixtures, removable by the tenant, precisely because their purpose was the tenant's business rather than improving the building. A picture hook screwed into a wall so you can hang a painting is not an improvement to the flat. A tiled feature wall is.

Which items are fixtures and which are fittings?

The right-hand column is not a licence to leave holes behind. A fitting you remove is yours, but the anchor holes, exposed cabling and paint shadow it leaves are still your reinstatement obligation. That distinction, not the ownership one, is where most deposits actually go. See fair wear and tear versus damage for where the line falls.

Can a tenant remove something they installed and paid for?

Timing is the trap. The right to take a tenant's fixture is exercisable during the term, not afterwards. A tenant who moves out on the last day of the lease and comes back a week later for the wall-mounted TV bracket has, in most cases, lost it. Build removal into the 30-day handover countdown, not into the week after.

Two Singapore-specific limits apply on top of the common law. In an HDB flat, works that needed a renovation permit and did not get one are unauthorised, and HDB can require the flat to be restored to its original condition at the owner's cost. Permits are not issued retrospectively, so a tenant's unpermitted hacking becomes the landlord's enforcement problem and, through the reinstatement clause, the tenant's bill. In a condominium, the management corporation's rules and its works permit govern anything touching common property, including air-conditioning condensers on the ledge.

What happens if you take a fixture when you move out?

The counter-argument tenants raise, that they paid for the item, rarely survives if the item was attached for the permanent improvement of the property. The more productive position is the betterment one: if the landlord is charging you to replace a five-year-old water heater with a new one, you are being asked to fund an upgrade. Our guide to the betterment rule sets out how to argue depreciation on a deduction.

If the deduction is not agreed, the venue is the Small Claims Tribunals, which hear tenancy claims up to S$20,000, or S$30,000 where both parties consent in writing. Filing is cheap and no lawyers appear, but the evidence standard is the same as anywhere: dated photographs, the inventory annexure and the written exchange. The deposit dispute guide sets out the sequence.

What does it cost to remove a tenant's fixture and make good?

Ranges are the 2026 Singapore figures in our reinstatement cost index. For context, a full condo reinstatement runs S$3,000 to S$12,000, or S$4 to S$8 per square foot, and an HDB flat S$800 to S$4,000.

The economics usually favour leaving a fixture in place and agreeing that in writing. A wall-mounted TV bracket costs S$60 to S$120 to buy and S$150 or more to remove and make good, because the make-good is a plasterer and a painter attending a site for a single patch. Many landlords will take the bracket. Almost none will take it after you have already pulled it off the wall.

Does the landlord have to pay you for improvements you leave behind?

This surprises tenants who spent S$8,000 on a kitchen. The only reliable protection is a side letter or a clause agreed before the work is done, recording what you are installing, who owns it at the end of the lease, and whether you must remove it. Where a landlord genuinely wants the improvement, the practical trade is that they waive the removal obligation in exchange for keeping the item, which saves you the make-good cost. Get that in writing at the point of installation, not at handover.

Landlords should note the inverse risk. Accepting an improvement means accepting its maintenance and, if the works were unpermitted, its regulatory exposure. Who ends up carrying that is set out in who pays for reinstatement.

How do you prevent this argument before you sign?

1. Complete the inventory before you move a single box in. List every landlord-supplied item and its condition. Photograph each room, including the inside of cabinets. Our move-in inventory guide has the room-by-room sequence.
2. Read the reinstatement clause, not just the rent. Check whether it says "original condition" or "as at commencement", and whether fair wear and tear is excepted. See the reinstatement clause explained.
3. Ask before you drill. A one-line WhatsApp confirmation that the landlord agrees to a TV bracket, and whether it stays or goes, costs nothing and is admissible.
4. Record what you install, with receipts. Date, item, cost, and the agreed position on removal. This is the document that makes a tenant's-fixture claim arguable.
5. Do the removals before the final inspection, not after. Then walk the unit against the inventory using the handover inspection checklist.

A condo reinstatement takes three to seven working days and an HDB flat two to four, so a tenant who decides in the final week which fixtures to remove has already lost the ability to schedule the make-good before handover. That, far more often than any legal disagreement, is what costs the deposit.