Offering under 'Offers Over' in Scotland

googler

Ask your solicitor to note interest in it, and find out how many other notes of interest they have.

If it gets to the stage of a closing date for offers, they should give you a chance to offer in competition with the other notes.

If they don't get enough notes of interest, they won't be declaring a closing date.

As per others, if you're happy to PM details of it, I may have a further opinion too....

itsnotarace

So just as an update to this thread - we decided to put on offer in on this house at the price we thought it was worth to us. On another house we would be willing to go up further, but this one comes with too many downsides to go any further.
The EA dismissed it outright saying that they had had an offer before now that was higher than this and the sellers had refused so there was no point taking it to them.

Our offer was £50,000 more than the any other house has gone for in that street, but still well under the offers over so we weren't surprised they said no. Really we liked the house, but only put the offer in so that we could move on and look elsewhere if it was rejected.

This is has reinforced how much i hate dealing with some EA's though. We had a conversation with them yesterday that went something like
EA:- "Oh yes, we've had an offer from another couple that was turned down by the seller."
Me:- "Oh, are you able to tell us if that offer was over the offers over price?"
"Yes, it was over the offers over price."
"Ah ok, in that case we'll have to leave it then as although it's a nice house, we don't feel the price is justified for the area"
and then some click clacking on a keyboard
"Oh actually, my mistake - I've just looked it up on the system and the offer was actually below the offers over price"

Yes ok. Once we withdrew all interest suddenly the other offer was a bit lower.

All that being said, the EA has said that the sellers are looking for offers over the OO price. My opinion on that is that they have got bad advice or are being foolish, and it'll sit there for months before being reduced.
It's been on the market for 4 months already and the other couple are the only ones to offer and no one else has even put in a note of interest.

Wasn't for us though.

Pixie5740

Why are you dealing with the estate agent at all? Why not get your solicitor to put forward your offer or note of interest instead?

itsnotarace

Well, going through the solicitor doesn't have much advantage at this stage that i can see. They will just phone up in the EA and have a chat before submitting a written offer. The EA will just tell them what they've told me I would imagine.

Birdman2015

Surely your solicitor will be able to give you better advise than anyone on here?

That's what you are paying him/her for afterall.

itsnotarace

We spoke to our solicitors office last week about the state of the market, as the last time we moved house they were very helpful. But the person the have on in 'new business' now doesn't seem very experienced and wasn't able to tell us anything we didn't know ourselves.
That being said, at this stage they aren't being paid anything by us.

Really though, in this instance there isn't much advice required now, it seems a clear cut case of a seller with unrealistic expectations and a potential buyer that isn't willing to meet them, so no sale.

Hasbeen

itsnotarace wrote: »

Well, going through the solicitor doesn't have much advantage at this stage that i can see. They will just phone up in the EA and have a chat before submitting a written offer. The EA will just tell them what they've told me I would imagine.

In Scotland, its no point talking/offering direct to agent.

You need to get Solicitor to make written offer and they do not phone or chat to the agents at all.

It will not cost you do this at this time, and it puts a formal offer to the vendor.

glasgowdan

Hasbeen wrote: »

In Scotland, its no point talking/offering direct to agent.

You need to get Solicitor to make written offer and they do not phone or chat to the agents at all.

It will not cost you do this at this time, and it puts a formal offer to the vendor.

That's rubbish.

Ok, for the formal offer stage, yes, but it's normal to phone the estate agents (or answer when they phone you), say yes, you'd like to put in an offer of £x, please let the sellers know.

If the sellers want to accept, the agent will then ask you to offer formally via your solicitor.

In particular, if it's a low offer that's got a high chance of being turned down it's better to do it informally yourself as making a number of low offers via a solicitor will mark you out as a time waster to them.

In this case, the house has been marketed too expensive, but the solicitr doesn't see that part, just the offer vs the asking/oo price.

Pa_Ja

I agree, there is no need to involve your solicitor at the bidding stage.
You're best placed to know what a property is worth and what you're willing to spend.
They only have so much time to spend with a client and will only slow the process down.

With regards to this property, it appears the seller is under no pressure to sell. Sounds like they've thrown it on the market with a figure in mind and waiting to see if someone bites.
I experienced a similar situation were I made an offer slightly less only to have it rejected then property to be reduced to a fix price below what I offered .

Keep looking at properties and be patient.

lydriver

I made the mistake of thinking ANY offer had to be through your solicitor.
I only phoned the EA to make sure the flat was still for sale, as it had been a while since I viewed it, I offered exactly the offers over figure...the EA then phoned the sellers and came back to me saying to phone my solicitor and tell them the offer had been accepted verbally
If I had known it worked like that I would have offered a few k under the offers over figure to start with!