Someone placed offer without viewing!!!

geoffky

its the estate agent playing mind games with you.......think about it..

Suzy_M

Ok It's the Monday - It's 10 pm - How did you get on?

masonsmum01

Went to view the house - needed a bit of work done so we are still considering placing an offer. The house didnt really feel right to me - I know that might sound silly but dont want to jump in as this will hopefully be my final move.

The offer that was placed before the viewing was by the lady who owned the property before the current owner, as she has seperated from her partner and only sold the house originally to move in with him!!

The vendor didnt accept her offer as he wanted to have more interest so we are still considering but being careful and might arrange a second viewing.

WeirdoMagnet

I might have got the wrong end of the stick (and forgive me if I do ), but don't they have a 'sealed bids' system in Scotland, whereby all of the interested parties make their offers through solicitors by the closing date? The vendor would then choose the buyer, taking into account prices, FTB, no chain, etc etc. This system prevents the EA/vendor pushing up prices by playing buyers off against one another.

Also, I thought that with the Scottish system, that once you've made the offer, that it is legally binding?

ETA We used to live in Scotland, and were looking into buying. Here's where I saw it when we were looking Halifax's Guide to Buying in Scotland and more specifically Putting in an offer in Scotland.

merlinthehappypig

Georgina wrote: »

Also, I thought that with the Scottish system, that once you've made the offer, that it is legally binding?

Morally yes, legally no. It's usually represented that way in the media, but, when push comes to shove, it's not as cut and dried as you might think.

We had a closing date on our house in Scotland. We had two bids and accepted the higher. The next morning the unsuccessful bidder put in another offer £6000 higher than the other bidder (this was over £16000 more than their previous offer).

The solicitor was legally obliged to pass this new offer on to us. When we expressed surprise that he could do this, he said that, whilst rejecting the previously agreed offer in favour of the new higher one was 'against custom and practice', there was no legal obstruction.

As he (the solicitor) had accepted the other offer on our behalf he explained that we would have to change solicitors if we went ahead. This wasn't for any legal reason, just that otherwise it would imply that he wasn't a man of his word.

It's not actually even totally binding when the missives have been concluded. We couldn't see any way that we, as sellers, could back out at that stage, but there were a number of caveats that premitted the buyer to withdraw, penalty free. In this respect, the English system is actually better once contracts have been exchanged. We had no guarantee that we would get the money until the day it was actually in the bank. There are no deposits in the Scottish system either so if a buyer pulls out, legal,action is the only recourse to get costs/damages back.

hearts

Georgina wrote: »

I might have got the wrong end of the stick (and forgive me if I do ), but don't they have a 'sealed bids' system in Scotland, whereby all of the interested parties make their offers through solicitors by the closing date? The vendor would then choose the buyer, taking into account prices, FTB, no chain, etc etc. This system prevents the EA/vendor pushing up prices by playing buyers off against one another.

Also, I thought that with the Scottish system, that once you've made the offer, that it is legally binding?

ETA We used to live in Scotland, and were looking into buying. Here's where I saw it when we were looking Halifax's Guide to Buying in Scotland and more specifically Putting in an offer in Scotland.

A seller can put a property to a closing date. All bids being received by then are considered but ALL can be rejected. Or any accepted.
A seller can accept an offer at any time without going to a closing date.
An offer is only legally binding once Missives are concluded. ( So you could accept the highest bid and the buyer can still withdraw)
The system in Scotland is not all it seems ;-)

ChasingButterflies

Georgina wrote: »

I might have got the wrong end of the stick (and forgive me if I do ), but don't they have a 'sealed bids' system in Scotland, whereby all of the interested parties make their offers through solicitors by the closing date? The vendor would then choose the buyer, taking into account prices, FTB, no chain, etc etc. This system prevents the EA/vendor pushing up prices by playing buyers off against one another.

An example of how this isn't quite the case.

Just over 2 years ago we went to view a house which was offers over 245k. It was an older property which the couple had lived in for years but were downsizing. We viewed as soon as this property was put on the market and then put in an offer with closing date for the most that we could afford (and that would have meant living with the awful decor and small kitchen until we could afford at some point to fix) Our offer was rejected - in our opinion we had offered a very fair amount for the place and they were aware that it was our 1st and final offer. So due to the number of "notes of interest" they put it to a closing date (sealed bids situation) I can't remember how many times the EA phoned to remind me of this :rolleyes: Even though I stated we had placed an offer that was refused and therefore was not willing to place another. (they didn't want a higher offer - they told me to bid the same amount...)

Last year (for a laugh) I checked out how much it had sold for >> 345k :eek: imho way over the top...

masonsmum: go with you gut - it is almost always right... a week after the above saga we went to an open viewing of another property - were in and out in 5 mins - offer placed on Monday am and later rejected. By this point our solicitor was really annoyed so phoned up vendors solicitor and asked what they would accept - they wanted an extra 6k... now because my gut feeling was that this was the perfect home for our family - we found the extra. There is no point - rushing we spent over a year looking for what could be the place we could all live forever. Got there in the end!

Suzy_M

masonsmum01 wrote: »

The house didnt really feel right to me - I know that might sound silly but dont want to jump in as this will hopefully be my final move.

It doesn't sound silly at all when you are looking for a "home" not just a "house". - Something I think people seem to forget these days. - And you are not jumping in with both feet.

Thanks for up-dating us and good luck.

merlinthehappypig

I completely agree with Suzy M.

If it's not simply an investment, there is no better judge of whether or not a house is suitable than that 'feeling'

WeirdoMagnet

Ah right - I didn't realise that they 'bent' the rules. I was led to believe that once you'd instructed a solicitor to put in an offer, that was it.