Scottish house purchase advice

wssb

Hi,

I live in Scotland and I am trying to buy a property. Due to a lack of credit history I asked for my mortgage application to be processed before making an offer on a property.

My application is currently being processed with Halifax, but they recently advised that the Home Report on the property we wish to buy is out of date and needs refreshed. So I contacted the Estate Agent and she told me that I have to make an offer and have this agreed before they will do the Home Report refresher.

I was under the impression that making an offer, even just a verbal offer, was legally binding in Scotland. And if I was to make an offer, would I get my solicitor to do this (therefore incurring legal expenses - which I did not want to do at this stage as I am not sure my mortgage application will be agreed) or can I make a verbal offer and agree a purchase price with the vendor myself?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I do not want to make a legally binding offer only to have my mortgage declined, nor do I wish to incur expensive legal costs only for this to be a complete waste of money.

Thanks

googler

If your 'offer' is in verbal terms, it isn't really an offer. An offer is only an offer when it's in writing, as the offer forms part of the contract between you and the seller. It can't be part of the contract if it's not in writing.

The seller and their agent want to see some committment from you before they instruct a refresh, since they'll be paying for it to be done. They don't want to pay for it, and find you walk away

Many solicitors, when acting for buyers, don't charge their clients for unsuccessful offers. You should look for one of these sols to hire. Many of them make a selling point of it.

Your offer becomes legally binding when missives are concluded between the buying and selling solicitors, not when they accept your offer.

Hire a solicitor now, and take his/her advice on whether or not to make an unconditional offer based on your current mortgage situation, or whether to add a clause to the offer that your mortgage is still outstanding.

rpc

Last time we bought, our offer was subject to finance. This was more to deal with any issues with the Home Report than our lender. The home report did need refreshed and the condition remained in our offer until the mortgage application was successful.

I have never used a solicitor that charged for fallen through purchases as long as you did eventually make a purchase using them.

myhouse_2

Sellers need to buy a home report before putting the house on the market. They can keep that home report for as long as they are on the market, but when someone actually wants to buy the house, at that time they have to refresh the home report if it is more than 6 months old. No seller will pay to refresh this before a proper offer is in, though that offer is likely to be a "subject to survey" offer, i.e not yet legally binding until that clause and any other similar clauses are removed. Typically it seems solictors will simply chat to the EA when they are making an offer and only when the offer is accepted will they submit a paper offer. At that point the seller will typically refresh the home report.

googler

myhouse wrote: »

Sellers need to buy a home report before putting the house on the market. They can keep that home report for as long as they are on the market, but when someone actually wants to buy the house, at that time they have to refresh the home report if it is more than 6 months old.

No they don't. They only 'have to' refresh the HR if the buyer or buyer's lender asks as such. If the buyer isn't getting a mortgage, they're unlikely to ask for a refresh, since it's the lenders that are insisting on them, and typically after 12 weeks, not 26.

coco1980

We have just bought a house in Scotland.
We made a verbal offer which was put in writing subject to an independant damp report once the seller had accepted it.
We were then informed that the home report had to be redone as it was more than 4 months old, this was not a request from us but something we were informed had to be done.

we had mortgage in principal before we had viewed the property

I read somewhere about a verbal offer being legally binding but I dont think it is. you are best to instruct a lawyer as they can clarify anything you need to ask and will also help you get the best deal on the house