To get you to help me bid on a house that lots of others are after

[Rockfrock]

Need you all to be my Kirstie & Phil.
NC for this. I am Scottish and am in England visiting friends. My DSis is with me and we" ve spotted a cottage that has literally just come up for sale. We want to put an offer in but not sure how to play things. We are unfamiliar with English system and speed is of the essence, hampered by the Public Holiday.
The cottage is marketed at £112k and being sold by an elderly chap but estate agent is closed until tomorrow. We know five sets of viewers have seen it and more are booked for Tuesday. It is delightful. Because the estate agent is shut we know we must act swiftly when it opens.
These are our questions. We have a total cash budget of £120K to include all legal fees and taxes. We have the name of a solicitor in the town and have decided to stay one more day and take a day"s holiday tomorrow. We both own a property each in Scotland. My DSis is single and I have two student children. We haven't even seen the home report but know we 'd love to buy it for our retirement. We have no other savings. Please can you suggest what steps to take?

First cottage: I sent them an email on saturday evening to say we were in a position to make an immediate cash offer and proceed as quickly as desired. At 08.56 today i got an email to say an other had been accepted and that "An offer has been made on this property and accepted, but if you would like to make a note of your interest in the event the sale does not proceed, please let me know". I crossed the threshold at about 09.03 unaware of the email. We said that we were v disappointed as we had respected the vendor's wishes not to negotiate with him. [What I never got to say was we had decided on a top price of £3k beyond asking had it gone to sealed bids.] The woman did take a note of our names regarding our continued interest. Maybe I should follow up with a reply to the email after all.

Second cottage: The seller strongly believes he will get £99k but market intelligence suggests he is having a laugh.