Buying a House in Scotland before selling my existing house

kissjenn

googler wrote: »

"Missives are not concluded until all funds to pay for the house, fees, legal costs etc have been paid. "

Er, no. Missives are concluded when the final exchange of letters takes place between buying and selling solicitors - at that point, there's a legally binding contract in place for one party to sell, and the other to buy.

Funds get paid to settle the transaction on the entry date, and fees, legal costs etc are usually settled shortly after.

googler wrote: »

There's guidance and links to pdfs at The Law Society of Scotland

This is 'straight from the horse's mouth' and more reliable than any answers here (including mine!). Bon Chance.

Hi,

I'd second googler.

There are a number of solicitor based property centres up here - ESPC (Edinburgh) GSPC (Glasgow) BSPC (Borders) and HSPC (Highlands), they all have buyer guides on their Websites www.espc.co.uk (for example).

Lots of info on this thread is wrong, some a little bit and some very very wrong. Find a solicitor and speak to them, the process isn't that daunting, the missives are exchanged early on and if the worse comes to the very worse you can get out but it's very bad form, your solicitor will be !!!!!! at you and there's a good chance you'll be hit for costs.

Given the size of the market here most solicitors know each other and presumably you'll pick one in the area you wish to live, that usually eases the process. These guys hammer out the contract within a week normally and don't keep popping backward and forwards racking up billable hours. I've been involved in the English process once and found it very different (and I'm told it was reasonably straightforward - only one attempted gazump and one threat to pull out at 11th hour). Most firms have no time for game playing and like a clean deal, the gazundering / gazumping can happen but is very rare and usually early on.


I can recommend some local firms if you are looking at ESPC neck of the woods if that helps at all. I'm not a solicitor just a landlord who's bought a few houses over the last 3 years.

Frugaldom

I only offered my perspective on things as per the conversations with my own lawyer whilst submitting offers. I did give the link to the SSPC for the benefit of the OP. But, I was asked to provide evidence of source of funding before my lawyer would proceed with submitting a legal offer. Apologies for the conclusion of missives info as it's just my belief that as soon as missives have been concluded you have bought the house, need to have everything signed, sealed and delivered. I thought 'missives' were just the paperwork, letter writing, bargaining correspondenceetc, etc, etc to the point that everything is agreed and the sale goes to settlement date, at which point you need to have the cash already with the lawyer. How can you have the funds with the lawyer if you haven't sold an existing property or set up alternative finance?

If you are interested in a Scottish property, get a lawyer to note an interest in said property and that way you will be kept informed of progress and any closing date, should the seller decide to go that road. Whatever anyone does by way of property purchase, professional, legal representation will be needed, so I still think it's the best place to start. And don't be scared to get quotes from several different law firms for the work. Haggling and comparing showed us a spread of over £500 difference just in fees.

Nosht

Just remember too that solicitors are not infallible.
Some are completely clueless about the entire proceedings, leave the work to paralegals & also about keeping in touch with clients. So keep on top of them.


Regards,


N.