Moving house in Scotland - how does it work without chains?
Discussion
OK so my house chain has just collapsed due to my buyer pulling out. Very annoying.
It got me thinking though, how does all this work in Scotland? When you accept an offer for your house how do you coordinate buying the next one when you're committed to selling the place you're living in? Or the other way round, is it possible to make an offer on a house if you haven't sold yours first? Or do you sell your house, agree a date, and plan to move into rented accomodation if you don't sell your house in time?
It got me thinking though, how does all this work in Scotland? When you accept an offer for your house how do you coordinate buying the next one when you're committed to selling the place you're living in? Or the other way round, is it possible to make an offer on a house if you haven't sold yours first? Or do you sell your house, agree a date, and plan to move into rented accomodation if you don't sell your house in time?
ianrb said:
InfoRetrieval said:
OK so my house chain has just collapsed due to my buyer pulling out. Very annoying.
It got me thinking though, how does all this work in Scotland? When you accept an offer for your house how do you coordinate buying the next one when you're committed to selling the place you're living in? Or the other way round, is it possible to make an offer on a house if you haven't sold yours first? Or do you sell your house, agree a date, and plan to move into rented accomodation if you don't sell your house in time?
We just moved into a hotel for 3 weeks.It got me thinking though, how does all this work in Scotland? When you accept an offer for your house how do you coordinate buying the next one when you're committed to selling the place you're living in? Or the other way round, is it possible to make an offer on a house if you haven't sold yours first? Or do you sell your house, agree a date, and plan to move into rented accomodation if you don't sell your house in time?
Had you already found the place you were buying when you sold yours?
Dr_Rick said:
Having seemingly moved every few years for the last decade (in Scotland), I can safely say that chains still exist.
The quirk of Scotland comes in during the legals process. You have a solicitor along for the ride all the way (as do the sellers); they do the searches and hopefully follow your instructions on negotiations. The estate agent simply holds the keys and services the advertising of the house (slightly overpriced in my opinion). All communications goes through the solicitor.
If you make an offer on a property, and it is accepted, at this point the process can still fall apart. However, Once the offer has been accepted, the solicitors start to do their thing and get the contract all drawn up (exchange date, covenants, searches, inclusions, price, boundaries, interests etc etc). Once the Missives have been Concluded (I think) a bargain has been reached: I promise to buy X property from Y on A date for B pounds. At this point if either the buyer or the seller pull out, there is some penalty to be paid to the other side, this includes straight walking away, or any form of gazump/gazunder-ing.
A chain can start at any point; you can get your cash out and simply bid, or you can bid subject to survey (Home Reports still exist here), get an offer in, get your mortgage offer sorted and start advertising your house. Or if you've accepted an offer on your house, try to get your solicitor to coordinate the exchange dates. Depends how accommodating the seller of the house your are interested in is. As mentioned, you may end up having a night or two in a hotel. Any of your other outcomes are possible too.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. So to summarise, accepting an offer in Scotland isn't as binding as I was led to believe, however it seems like the time between having and offer accepted and Concluding the Missives is a lot quicker than the time here from offer to Exchange of Contracts.The quirk of Scotland comes in during the legals process. You have a solicitor along for the ride all the way (as do the sellers); they do the searches and hopefully follow your instructions on negotiations. The estate agent simply holds the keys and services the advertising of the house (slightly overpriced in my opinion). All communications goes through the solicitor.
If you make an offer on a property, and it is accepted, at this point the process can still fall apart. However, Once the offer has been accepted, the solicitors start to do their thing and get the contract all drawn up (exchange date, covenants, searches, inclusions, price, boundaries, interests etc etc). Once the Missives have been Concluded (I think) a bargain has been reached: I promise to buy X property from Y on A date for B pounds. At this point if either the buyer or the seller pull out, there is some penalty to be paid to the other side, this includes straight walking away, or any form of gazump/gazunder-ing.
A chain can start at any point; you can get your cash out and simply bid, or you can bid subject to survey (Home Reports still exist here), get an offer in, get your mortgage offer sorted and start advertising your house. Or if you've accepted an offer on your house, try to get your solicitor to coordinate the exchange dates. Depends how accommodating the seller of the house your are interested in is. As mentioned, you may end up having a night or two in a hotel. Any of your other outcomes are possible too.
I find out today if the seller of the house I was buying is accepting a new offer...
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