House buying in Scotland

clairecymru

My husband and I are looking to buy a house in Scotland (we currently live in Wales). Someone has advised me that Scotland has its own legal system so house buying is different there. What are the differences?

diable

Is this your main home or a holiday home?

clairecymru

Will be our main home. We are looking to sell our flat in Wales and move to Scotland.

bris

There is not much difference, in fact now that nearly every house is fixed price you will hardly notice a difference at all.
Some are sold as "offers over" this means that the house is on at a reasonable price and competing buyers will auction style bid to get the house at a figure above the price quoted.
About 4 or 5 years ago houses were going 20 to 30% above asking. This isn't really happening just now unless your looking in the really good areas.
Once your offer is accepted then to clinch it you need to "conclude missives", this is a bit like exchanging contracts. Once missives are concluded then thats it, each party is legaly bound to complete much the same as in Wales.
You need a solicitor to make an offer for you, this is normaly free if you use the solicitor to complete the sale for you.

ash28

clairecymru wrote: »

My husband and I are looking to buy a house in Scotland (we currently live in Wales). Someone has advised me that Scotland has its own legal system so house buying is different there. What are the differences?

The systems are similar but they differ in one very important aspect - exchanging contracts - in England that is done near the end of the process - in Scotland concluding the missives is done very early on - and is legally binding - you can't withdraw (either party) without covering the losses of the buyer/seller. A moving date is usually set very early on too..

The missives are letters that are exchanged between solicitors - you don't normally have anything to sign.

You need to be absolutely sure about the property before you make an offer in Scotland. When we lived there it was common for purchasers to have a survey done and finance in place before making an offer. You usually knew an offer was about to be made on your house if a surveyor came out.

I would advise you to use a Scottish solictor when you buy in Scotland - if it was me I would probably sell up completely in Wales and rent while you look in Scotland - if you try and do both together you could end up legally contracted to a house in Scotland and your house in Wales falls through.

We had the opposite problem in moving from Scotland to England - we sold our house in Scotland which we knew would go through and had a moving date set 9 weeks from acceptance - we had to find a house where we moving to that we were fairly sure would go through - we chose a house that was being sold as part of a divorce.

The "offers over" (sealed bids) and fixed price are different matters altogether and are down to personal choice - we normally looked at fixed price properties as at the time although you could put in your offer subject to survey - a lot sellers weren't happy - and if you had the survey done up front and didn't get the house it was money down the drain.

lucylucky

"There is not much difference, in fact now that nearly every house is fixed price you will hardly notice a difference at all."

Some houses are offered at a fixed price, not nearly every house.

http://www.slaterhogg.co.uk/content/008_Results/

As an example in the first three pages only one house is a "fixed price", one is "offers in the region of" and all the rest are "offers over"

bris

lucylucky wrote: »

"There is not much difference, in fact now that nearly every house is fixed price you will hardly notice a difference at all."

Some houses are offered at a fixed price, not nearly every house.

http://www.slaterhogg.co.uk/content/008_Results/

As an example in the first three pages only one house is a "fixed price", one is "offers in the region of" and all the rest are "offers over"

well it depends on where you look. slaterhogg is an esyate agent who will still try and achieve the impossible.
have a look on the ESPC solicitor type sites. I can assure you fixed price is now the the way people are selling, except for the popular areas (oh but I already said that didn't I ). Offers in the region off are even better as most will accept below the price.

MilneBay

ash28 hit the nail on the head. You need to be sure that your house in Wales has sold before buying a house up here as once the missives go through there is no going back. Selling up and enting somewhere first might be the best option.

I'd also imagine you would need a solicitor up here and one in Wales as the legal systems are different. In Scotland your offer has to be submitted through a solicitor. Your first stage is usually to submit a note of interest - that way you are told if the seller chooses to put it to a closing date - a sealed bids system (although as others have pointed out fixed prices are also quite common in the current climate but it depends where you are, according to the Aberdeen press house prices actually went up this month).

In terms of a survey, the normal procedure is that once your offer is accepted, you have a fixed perios (48 or 72 hours) to arrange for the survey to be carried out. The solicitor will normally do this for you.

The best place to look for properties are the solicitors property centres for the region, so ASPC for Aberdeen, TSPC for Tayside, ESPC for Edinburgh etc

Hope this helps. The Scottish system sounds confusing when you don't know it but if you can get an offer accepted it is very simple and sales do not fall through at the last minute in the same way.

MB

googler

Much will depend on how much time you're spending in Scotland to look.

You'll need a solicitor to act for you, since all offers must be submitted in Scottish legal form, and since this forms part of your contract of purchase, you want it to be correct.

You may want to hire one on your next viewing trip - if so, bring some ID with you, for they'll have to confirm who you are for compliance with the money-laundering regulations.

Look for a solicitor who doesn't charge for failed multiple offers - if you're unsuccessful with your first and any subsequent offers, you don't want one who's charging you for each and every one. Clarify charging structure upfront.

You want a solicitor in the area you're looking to buy, so that they can advise you on the market in the area.

The downside of hiring in advance like this is that if you happen to fall in love with a house marketed by the firm you've just hired, you'll then have to find another sol, because of conflict of interest in acting for you and the seller

Which area are you looking to buy in?

Some of the advice given above regarding surveys is now redundant - every property marketed since Dec 2008 is marketed with a Home Report - this contains a survey on the condition of the property, a surveyor's valuation, and the seller's property questionnaire. Typically, this will be provided to your lender for the purposes of mortgage valuation.

Depending on your circumstances, it may be worthwhile to consider renting first, put things in storage if necessary, and get a feel for the market whilst living there, rather than trying to co-ordinate a purchase at a distance.

vegasvisitor

I think you may find that fixed price and offers in the region are 2 completely different things, in terms how to accept bids rather than just the price itself.

We were (correctly) advised to put ours on the market with 'in the region of'. Apparently if someone offers your fixed price amount, the lawyer will get annoyed if you turn it down. So basically if you market your house for a short period and get several viewers then there's a good likelihood that you will hope for more. So it means you can have a closing date if you want. With fixed price you can't really. In my area they tend to go on at offers in the region then change to fixed price when they've given up on any idea of any offer over.

Be aware that whether fixed or offers in the region of, you may offer whatever you like. It's up to you, and it's up to the seller if they want to take it! Don't be afraid to knock £10k or even more off the asking price. It's become common practice up here.

lucylucky

bris wrote: »

well it depends on where you look. slaterhogg is an esyate agent who will still try and achieve the impossible.
have a look on the ESPC solicitor type sites. I can assure you fixed price is now the the way people are selling, except for the popular areas (oh but I already said that didn't I ). Offers in the region off are even better as most will accept below the price.

Looking at an "ESPC solicitor type site" I found 14 of the first 20 properties listed were "offers over".
This was in a "popular area" perhaps the OP wishes to live in such a place?