Urgent property purchase question - Scotland

[edi345]

Hi everyone, first post so be gentle please! :-)
Need some of advice regarding the conveyancing process in Scotland.

Very hypothetical situation as we may end up not being successful in either offer BUT

We are purchasing a new property (sold ours, waiting for it to complete). Both properties are sold by executors (so both empty).
One is closing this week, other is closing next week.

Our preference is 2nd one but if I couldn't get 2nd one, we would be happy with the one closing this week.

Can someone advise, if I offered on 1st on and was accepted, could I then offer on the 2nd one with different solicitor and if accepted, simply pull out of the first deal simply risking being liable for conveyancing fees? We would be way of exchanging missives so no other financial commitment as far as I can tell.

Other than this being morally dubious (causing 1st selling estate agent some additional work), any reason why we couldn't do it?

Huge problems if the sellers solicitors on the ball - you can be sued for not following through - (know of folks this happened too but house was expensive). Very unethical of your solicitor to proceed if they are aware of the situation. Pretty confident that it is legally binding once your offer is accepted.

thanks for the response, in Scotland its definitely not legally binding until missives are exchanged, know that for a fact as we have had our offer accepted on a different property already and sellers pulled out because they didn't want to wait any longer for our property to sell.

You can pull out of a purchase at any stage before you complete the missives (and I’ve seen last minute gazundering as well). It’s frowned upon and the first set of solicitors would be pissed off if you pulled out. You may well incur some costs as they will get the ball rolling as soon as the offer is accepted, might be hard to delay that until the second closing date.

In that situation, I would only offer on the 2nd house.

Theoretically you can, but you might find you then have to get a new solicitor, as your original ones may refuse to act for you again. It really is very, very not done.