Scottish system stinks!

[littleladsdad]

Viewed property on Thursday last week, on Friday told couldn't make an offer due to Bank Hol. Solicitor registered note of interest on Tuesday. We called this morning (Wed) to make offer only to be told vendor had accepted an offer the previous afternoon. This wasn't Glasgow/Edinburgh, this was Glengarnock! My advice to others looking to but in Scotland would be to ignore what you read about how things work in Scotland and what Solicitors/EA's tell you, just make an offer. We have learned our lesson the hard by trying to do things by the rules!

Same thing happened to me recently.
Six notes of interest and they took an offer without setting a closing date. Infuriating I agree.

The system doesn’t stink. You just need to know how it works. If it’s a property you’re keen on then making a quick direct offer is anyways worth it.

I agree though that solicitors don’t generally explain this and that’s infuriating

Did the offers have a ready to move in quick date.

Since we moved to Scotland I’ve been told this several times by people - you absolutely can put an offer in whenever you like. Unfortunately I live in a very in demand town where stuff is still going to closing with close to 20 offers and probably ending up going for 20-25% over

Go get gazumped then.

I’ve bought and sold three times in England and never been gazumped or gazundered. I don’t know anyone it happened to either! I’m sure it does happen but perhaps not as common as Scots think? What I find so difficult about the system here is you have no idea how much to offer over - 10%? 12%? 20%? Whereas in our previous purchases the agent has guided us - ‘well it’s on for 500 but they’d accept 495 if you can be quick/no chain kind of thing.’

This…offers don’t HAVE to go through solicitors…would you prefer we had the ridiculous English system? Because I certainly wouldn’t

I'm glad we don't have chains to the same extent here. I'm sure we do in that most people who are selling are probably buying somewhere else but they don't seem to be the same problem that they are in England. Also, judging by the threads on mumsnet house sales seem to go through much faster in Scotland than in England. We bought a property recently and had the keys within about 6 weeks of making the offer (didn't wait for a closing date to be set and stated that the offer had to be accepted within 24 hours or it would expire as we were also looking at other properties).

Why didn't you call on Tuesday and make an offer??

Don't think there is much difference between Scotland and England tbh, different systems, different issues.

The biggest problem in England is that people seem to believe they have "bought" a house when they actually haven't. They have simply entered negotiations to buy a house right up to the point of exchange. Until that point (and quite reasonably IMO) either side can pull out.

There is data on the web that suggests approx. 30% of house purchase attempts fail between initial offer and exchange, so planning your life around a house sale definitely going through to completion when you are in the contract negotiation stage is unwise.

I don’t understand, who told you that you couldn’t make an offer on Monday? Solicitor or estate agent?

I’ve always submitted a verbal offer to estate agent directly and followed up with formal one from solicitor.

Calmed down a bit now but it's still raw. Take on board most of the comments here. Agree with Longwhiskers that it's hard to know where to pitch offers on properties going to closing date in particular. We offered at about 15% on one a week or so ago, to be told that the winning bid was several 10's of thousands more. This was in Falkirk. Another property that we're interested in is going to closing date tomorrow, so fingers crossed.

The market is very different here in England atm, quite quiet, houses not achieving asking prices. In comparison the market in Scotland is like the Wild West - several of the properties we've been interested in have had 20

• viewings in the first few days and cash buyers seemingly queuing up to compete with each other, offering heaven only knows what. If we're not successful in the next couple of days we're going to have to rent - if you can't beat them, join them!

Some of Scotland is as you describe, but there are an awful lot of properties as you describe -not achieving HR valuations, being on the market for a lot longer than they would have done less than a year ago…the actual process after offer is a lot shorter than in England, it’s not uncommon as a PP stated to have missives concluded in 6 weeks -THAT’s the part of the process that England needs to buck up on

I agree it can be difficult to know where to pitch an offer and rightmove doesn't always help that much because it is so out of date. It doesn't help when some houses appear to be listed at a lower price, perhaps to attract interest.

If you submit a note of interest, the seller’s solicitor is obliged to tell you if a closing date is set for a property - but this doesn’t mean the seller can’t just outrightly accept an offer if the buyer is desirable, unfortunately.

The Scottish system is so difficult when it comes to pitching the right offer. To a degree it’s a guessing game, but the number of notes of interest prior to closing will give you an idea of how high you should go.

On the property we recently bought, it has 16 notes of interest (detached three-bed Georgian cottage with large garden) and 10 people put in offers 🙄 We had to offer 29% over home valuation - and as were only the second highest offer! Person above us offered £10k, but EA put them off as they’d pulled out of a previous sale.

If it makes you feel a bit better I had an offer accepted mid October (England) and finally got the keys yesterday a full seven months later, and I wasn’t even selling!!

Last time I sold I had lots of offers and notes of interest so it made sense to go to a closing date. I would always make an offer first if I was desperate for the property but wouldn't expect it to be accepted. I think you've been unlucky.

The market is very buoyant here atm. You have to know the particular local market well to know what price to bid. You can speak to the estate agent about recent sale prices and use notes of interest to gauge the ultimate price. I've not bid on houses that had loads of notes of interest just because I knew the price would be inflated. Good luck!

Update: We were successful with the property today, up against 6 others and offered 20% over HR value. Thanks for all the input, rather wish I'd started this topic earlier, so much good advice has been offered. DS is starting at RCS in September, so we're relieved to be close enough to be able to support him in his endeavors.

You can't extrapolate from your own, limited experience to the whole system of conveyancing in Scotland. This site is so febrile at the moment.