house selling know-how - bloody hell

IveSeenTheLight

Jennifer_Jane wrote: »

I dislike the Scottish system, it only benefits the seller. The buyer is at huge risk.

I love the Scottish system as a buyer and a seller.

As a buyer you put in an offer you value the property at and can afford. If you have the highest offer, generally the property is yours, no options of gazumping

As a seller, you can get the best offer from the number of noted interest parties.

I don't see where the risk is for the buyer

I once bought a property without getting the chance to see it and won by only a couple of hundred pounds.
How could I do this you ask, because I spent a considerable amount of time assessing the market and knew a similar property in the same street.

The Scottish system is totally clear cut, in fact what you have described for Sweden / South Africa is how I have bought in Scotland

IveSeenTheLight

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

The problem comes when houses are "offers over" and you don't get the house - you have already paid for a survey and have no house - so you move on to the next one and the next one....

There was talk about get one survey that would cover all interested parties - but I'm not sure if anything came of it

No, you make a offer subject to survey, hence you only pay when your offer is accepted. Of course if someone else has completed a survey you can piggy back at a cheaper rate

tyllwyd

harrup wrote: »

But I WOULD hate to loose a hundred grand or more on it. I am not savvy enough about house prices OR the economy to know whether this is likely. And, seemingly, nobody else knows either.

You are right there! But I was at uni at the end of the eighties, and I remember how painful the crash was fior people I knew who had only recently bought - but in the longer term if you were able to hold on things did sort themselves out.

You are already in the housing market, so as long as you don't overpay on a house you hate, you shouldn't lose out too badly by moving because both houses will either go up or down in price, hopefully by a similar amount. Being too hasty is risky - but equally, I can think of a few people I know who have been too cautious and missed out. I'd keep looking in the paper, and try to get a good feeling for house prices in your area (although certainly in our local area the prices advertised seem pretty random at the moment!) and try to build up a picture of what you want.

harrup

IveSeenTheLight wrote: »

I love the Scottish system as a buyer and a seller.

As a buyer you put in an offer you value the property at and can afford. If you have the highest offer, generally the property is yours, no options of gazumping

As a seller, you can get the best offer from the number of noted interest parties.

I don't see where the risk is for the buyer

I once bought a property without getting the chance to see it and won by only a couple of hundred pounds.
How could I do this you ask, because I spent a considerable amount of time assessing the market and knew a similar property in the same street.

The Scottish system is totally clear cut, in fact what you have described for Sweden / South Africa is how I have bought in Scotland

I may be totally off base here ( as I said, I'm still shockingly ignorant about house selling matters) but I believe a similar/same system exists in England whereby a property is sold via "informal tender" e.g. via sealed bids submitted to the EA/seller? As far as I understand it's a form of silent auction.

A couple of years ago, these were REALLY popular in my area....and drove me totally bonkers. Usually, they were only applied to character properties and the rationale of the EA - perhaps quite justifiable and true - was that those properties were hard to value accurately due to their unique characteristics and the spiralling market.

The RISK for the potential buyer was that they might have missed out on a property they really loved for the sake of a couple of hundred pounds. But since they didn't know what anything else bid, there was no way to circumvent this. Or, conversely, that their offer was substantially higher than anyone elses and they thus paid more than necessary. Let's face it, who wants to do that, either.

The RISK for the seller, I suppose, was that if they had offered the property via open auction - with a high reserve - they may have gotten even higher offers than those received and accepted.

Personally, I truly detest anything which lacks transparency and I'm certain that most others feel likewise. Either put a price tag on your house and then honour the offer you accepted even if a higher bidder comes along at the last minute - or put it up for auction and may the highest bidder win fair and square. I fail to see why houses can't be bought and sold ....well, the word leaping to mind is "honourably".

To the same extent, I'd welcome a regulation whereby the seller has to provide a full survey to potential buyers. If they want to do their own afterwards, fine ( I certainly would) but a buyer should know in advance what exactly they are buying and whether they are still interested after perusing the survey. But I think this has now been - at least partially -addressed with the introduction of HIP ?

Years ago, some friends were house hunting in Switzerland. Compared to here, this seemed remarkably straight forward and transparent. If memory serves, before they even were allowed to view a property they had to demonstrate to the EA that they had the actual means to afford it. The minimum funds required were 40% of the PP. They also had access to a detailed survey from the outset. But its a very different market there - people don't house-hop like here. Nor can they buy a house without having any money whatsoever.

tyllwyd

harrup wrote: »

I may be totally off base here ( as I said, I'm still shockingly ignorant about house selling matters) but I believe a similar/same system exists in England whereby a property is sold via "informal tender" e.g. via sealed bids submitted to the EA/seller? As far as I understand it's a form of silent auction.

I've never done that, but I have heard of it - there was an episode of Location, Location a while back where a couple bid something like £800k on a property by sealed bid. But the estate agent made a mistake, and sent them a copy of a document that they should have sent to the seller, showing that the second highest bid was more like £400k. At that point the couple had walked away!!

SP123_3

The 10% deposit when offer accepted is a myth. I've only paid a deposit once, and that was £500 on a new build plot several years ago. Legally, accepting an offer means nothing - either party can pull out with no redress on either side.

Most people don't have their survey done prior to offering either - usually, offers are made 'subject to survey'. That gives the buyer the chance to negotiate depending on the results of the survey.

Nothing is set in stone until the conclusion of missives - basically the series of letters between the two sets of solicitors negotiating the points of the deal. This part can take several weeks and it's not unknown for missives to be concluded just a day or two before moving in/out.

After the missives are concluded there is liability on both sides to see the deal through - if one side pulls out they are usually responsible for meeting costs of the other party, eg remarketing, additional legal or survey fees, even the difference in selling price if the house is resold at a lower value.

I've been on the receiving end of the good and the bad of the process. When selling my flat, we accepted an offer from a buyer who then took an age to get a survey done and mortgage organised. It then transpired she couldn't actually afford the place all along and pulled out. She'd wasted several weeks of our time but as the missuves hadn't been concluded we had no comeback against her. Our new set of buyers faffed around too and had an idiot lawyer. They had four weeks between concluding missives and date of entry, yet they failed to drawdown the mortgage on time. Because there was a delay, we were able to charge them interest because they'd failed to keep their end of the deal.

chewmylegoff

SP123 wrote: »

Our new set of buyers faffed around too and had an idiot lawyer. They had four weeks between concluding missives and date of entry, yet they failed to drawdown the mortgage on time. Because there was a delay, we were able to charge them interest because they'd failed to keep their end of the deal.

so the same as if you had exchanged contracts in england and wales and the buyer failed to complete.