Why do American house sales complete so quickly??

[AllGoodDogs]

I'm watching ~The Kardashians~ a high brow American house show and the buyer of a house has just made an offer and wants to move in in 2 weeks. How does this happen when it takes months in the UK?? Is it because they're filthy rich or do they just not faff about with surveys / contracts / blah blah like we do. Or maybe they do too, but far more efficiently!

The KKKKKKK klan live in California, I think? I'm from there. This is what my family tell me.

It can take many weeks on East Coast where lawyers handle the paperwork. But in CA, Estate agent handles all the legal paperwork. 3 days after offer is accepted a contract is signed on both sides, committing to the sale with long list of get-out clauses and penalties. After inspections (especially for termites), that usually happen within 1 week of offer accepted, price may be renegotiated else more paperwork is signed to commit further to sale (higher penalties to get out of it). More inspections & thresholds, each time more paperwork signed. 7-20 days from offer to completion is not impossible, and 30 days is pretty standard.

I don't know how they deal with chains! Surely that is biggest hold up in English system.

Estate agents in CA earn astonishing amounts of money, btw.

Scotland doesn’t have a chain system. You are totally committed to moving within a few days of the offer and have usually moved within 4-6 weeks.

ps: some of my cousins have had homes repossessed. Mortgage companies are very unforgiving of any late payments, and property tax (like council tax) is high, 1%of the value of purchase price/yr unless you're age 55+.

There’s a fantastic thread on here from a poster who was in the process of selling her home in the states.

It was fascinating, i’ll try and find it.