How do other countries move house and avoid chains?

[Nevermindtheteacaps]

Having just, after 9 months which included several collapsed chains, sellers pulling out, buyer threatening to pull out, forays into the international banking system and countless other stresses completed on the sale of our house I am wondering:

If the UK house buying system with chains and no guarantees is the worst in the world, what do other countries do? And do they tie up buying and selling so no one is left homeless?

Just me who was curious then😂

You set a date, but nobody actually moves on the day of the sale. You factor the extra rent or an interim solution into your cost.
The way it is done here is insane.

@PastTheGin so everyone moves out into temp homes?

In the US and Canada, once an offer is accepted, both parties sign a contract that is binding and a deposit is paid. It doesn't mean that no one can back out, but they have to have a very good reason for doing so (serious inspection issues etc), and they may well lose their deposit, which will usually be around five figures.

Also, we don't consider other people's buying/selling issues to be ours. If we are buying a house, we sell ours, and if there's a gap of a month or a few weeks between moving out of ours and into our new one, then we get an airbnb or hotel or whatever, and we expect others to do the same. I have read threads on here where people felt that having to rent somewhere for a couple of months was an insurmountable issue that made them rethink the house sale.

I've never heard of a sale in US or Canada taking longer than 8 weeks to close, unless it is a foreclosure or something tricky.

German here: You have a contract with a fixed date where the house changes ownership. Normally you then cancel your rental contract 1-2 months later and calculate this into your budget.

It also means you will decorate/renovate your new house in peace while noone is living in it.

If you own a house, again you sell with a date later or you move into short-term rental in-between.

As people don't move very often if they own a house, it's less of an issue.

Scotland - as with US and Canada above, once locked in, the sale has to go through. Many people sell, then move to a rental or move in with relatives temporarily, then buy. Even if doing simultaneous buying and selling people know that your property really has to be vacated on sale day come what may.

When we lived in the US it seemed like it was quite common to have a bridging loan. So the bank lends you the money short term (presumably secured on the house you are selling) to buy the new house and then you pay it back once you sell your old house. Means there’s no chain essentially.

I remember my friend stressing cos they did this and bought a family home before they sold their flat, and then there was some major delay with their flat sale and she had a couple extra months of double payments. It worked out in the end though!

When we sold our house we were moving abroad so we negotiated the closing would be a bit longer than usual (was about 6 weeks I think) so that the timing worked with our flights. We stayed in a hotel for 2 nights at the end so it worked out pretty much perfectly.

You take out bridging finance at a very high interest rate for a couple of months and factor that into the cost of selling and buying.

You rent. We’ve done it. Pain in the ass moving but totally stress free.

I don’t understand why it’s not more common. Made our house more appealing to buyers too.

I will do this again.

Between having an offer accepted and signing the missives, either party can pull out though. It can be months in between in some cases. It's an awful state of uncertainty.

We’ve just had a purchase take 14 months here - total nightmare! Multiple family members have brought houses in NZ and Australia, starting way after us and with much less stress in the meantime. I think their systems are more similar to the US and Canada as described above. A purchase is binding once the contracts are signed and it’s more common to move into temporary accommodation if needed.

Other countries have bridging loans as standard, so that a house sale can proceed discretely from other house purchases. It means there are no chains, which seems far the best way of proceeding. The stress from chains must be horrific (I've always been fortunate enough to not have to depend on the sale of a property to buy the next one, which is much nicer).

I've often thought it would be useful for the Government to scrutinise other countries' methods and make a procedure of the better aspects. Having your vendor or buyer pull out of a sale must be exceedingly stressful but it would be worse if you couldn't no matter what, so there has to be a line drawn somewhere.

I've also wondered about specially designed blocks of apartments for temporary short term use, so if you need to rent somewhere for a few weeks or months, you've somewhere to go in the meantime. It does seem to be harder to find rental accommodation these days and it must be even more difficult if it's for a relatively shorter period.

The idea of trying to find temporary accommodation around here brings me out in a cold sweat 😂

It's not a UK wide system though.

Scotland is completely different.

No chains and you move in the date agreed.

Job done. ✔️

Chains aren’t a thing in Norway. You can’t bid on a house without a mortgage offer. The seller organized the surveys which the buyer gets from the EA. The offer is legally binding so you cannot pull out when accepted (it is possible in some very specific circumstances but very hard to do), date for transfer of ownership is agreed, and on that date you meet, go through the house and give the keys to the new owner. If you are buying elsewhere, generally you either own two properties for a short while, banks have systems for this, or you rent until your new house is ready.

@rainbowxlight

Between having an offer accepted and signing the missives, either party can pull out though. It can be months in between in some cases. It's an awful state of uncertainty

It's not that common though.

Last time I moved it was 6 week process.

short term rent accomodation is so hard to find, if it wasn't that would be the simple way to simplify trying to dovetail more than one household moving! As it is that's is often not an option. I have used renting in between selling and buying though and would again if possible as it did remove the 'timing critical' pressure... but also meant I was packing moving and unpacking more.

In California, seller & buyer start signing contracts 2-3 days after offer accepted. Estate agents handle most of the legal forms (lawyers are involved on East Coast which takes longer). Every time the house passes a new inspection (termites, electrics, whatever) or buyer gets new funding terms confirmed (dependent on termites, electrics, the deal broker can get depends on those things sometimes... etc) there is a new round of contracts to sign. I think my mother's house (vacant) was 3 weeks from offer accepted to closure.

I imagine Florida requires a 40 year concrete inspection (pass test) for beach property purchases.

You can break contract without penalties or renegotiate price if termites are found, etc.

Renting between sounds quite sensible until I think about the cost of two lots of removals and storage in between for a whole houseful of furniture and things. If something were to go wrong, you would be paying for these expenses for a while.

Me too. And the reason l won’t do it is in a boom house prices round me go crazy. So if you rent for 6 months and lose your sale the market could go up 20k or more.

It’s similar in Sweden, no chains. The property goes on the market, there is usually two open houses then the bidding begin, the bids are shown much like an Ebay auction, so you have bidder 1, bidder 2 etc. You place your bids through an app or via text. Once the seller has picked a buyer you sign a legally binding contract that day or the day after with an agreed moving date. You pay 10% at this point which you lose if you pull out.

It’s super simple and no lawyers are involved, the estate agent is liable for supplying correct information and they can be fined or lose their license if they don’t.

I never understood why UK (I see now Scotland is different) use this system. It makes things so unnecessarily complicated.

Here once offer to purchase is agreed and signed you cannot pull out. Well I suppose there are some cases where you could, but it's not often. Transfer takes 6 to 8 weeks. A moving date is agreed via solicitor that suits both parties. If the seller moves out before the transfer is complete, the buyer can move in and pays the seller occupational rent. And then the same could happen if the new buyer of that house wants to move in them. I have never known this to all happen on the same day.

There is none of this we get the keys at 2.05pm and from that point the house is yours. It's a far more relaxed situation.

And there is no such thing as gazumping. That is why you have to be absolutely sure about the house before you sign the offer to purchase.

moving house regularly is less common in some other places in that people rent until they buy a family home. However rentals are also different in that unless you fail to pay rent or do something really bad you can't be evicted. so you can stay in same apartment for years.

It's not often I say the Americans have a better system but this is!

This sounds terrifying