Relocating from England to Scotland

[YorkshireGirl2016]

Hello, we are relocating from England to Scotland. Hoping to buy somewhere with a bit more land and better quality of life.

Does anyone have any hints and tips? This is our first property in England, therefore I have never sold a house before and never bought a house in Scotland.

Any advice would be much appreciated - feeling a little apprehensive! Thank you

No hints or tips, sorry. But we are in the same position.
Are you selling property in England as well beforehand?

From previous threads you will need 2 solicitors . One for your sale in England and another for your Scottish purchase.

Give us some clues re budget, school requirements, jobs, hobbies, urban or rural etc. We are a helpful bunch.

Thank you...your post made me smile!

We are selling a house in Yorkshire beforehand.

Want something rural. Working from home so good Internet access...how is it up there?

Budget around 250k. Always been a dream to have a croft but unsure if that's possible

I need to be realistic...in reality I need the modern world of the Internet but my dream is self sufficiency. Currently I am self sufficient in vegetables...but would really like to extend this to livestock

Bear in mind that if you move here and Scotland goes independent, you will suddenly become an expat immigrant in a foreign country.
The house buying system is different up here - you usually have to offer considerably over the asking price, and offers are made by sealed bids, via solicitors, so you don’t know whether other potential buyers are outbidding you or not. DD lost out on several small flats, some of which sold for £70K over asking price.
Internet coverage is patchy- you’d need to check for whichever specific areas you’re interested in. I’m in a village only 10 miles from a city, but we certainly don’t have a superfast service and it’s still copper wire, not optical cable. Cities tend to be much better, as you’d expect.
In general terms, you probably will get more land and a bigger house for your money here than in Yorkshire, with the exception of anywhere commutable to Edinburgh, which is likely to be the same or more.
Do some research online to get a feel for the property market up here.
There are “Solicitors Property Centres” websites based in each city or area, with details of most of the houses available in their area, with pics, floor plans and asking prices. You really need to narrow your search area a bit though, or you’ll take months wading through the options!

Do your research regarding weather, some places much wetter and duller than others.

The Aberdeenshire area is very reasonably priced ATM due to housing oversupply and falling oil prices.

You don't say whether you have kids or what size of house you require but you can pick up something like this for around £210k (offers aren't currently generally over asking price due to the poor local market)

www.aspc.co.uk/search/property/389683/Byebush-Of-Fedderate-Farm/Turriff/

Did you have an area in mind?

Scotland is big and very diverse. A miners cottage in a fife or Lanarkshire village is vastly different to a seaside villa in Brora say

What about Scotland specifically are you looking for?

Sorry just seen you've said a Croft or rural

Have you narrowed it down to any particular area(s) of Scotland? You'll probably get more input if you can be a bit more specific.

Hi. Same situation. Selling up from Norfolk. Feel clueless

If i could move to anywhere in Scotland I'd pick Inverness or one of the villages close to it.
Beauly for example is a lovely place.
It's rural. Plenty of outdoor activities. Good schools.

We are 3 months into this and due to move any day.
Make sure the people in Scotland you are buying from know what timescales the English end of the chain might reasonably expect! And that your Scottish solicitor has done cross border transactions before.
The Scottish system ties you in so much earlier and has most things already done (survey, mortgage valuation etc), that it can be massively disconcerting for people who are used to that to deal with the shambolic English equivalent.
(You can tell this is not going well! Nearly at 3 months and no contract yet. Happily for us our vendors are fab.)

Dumfries and Galloway has v rural areas... V good house prices great schools and easy access to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Examples

We did this in November last year. Initially we had a solicitor's firm who could do both, but we had to swap for reasons not their fault. They were excellent and I can give you the name if you want. We managed to just have a gap of a day between sale and purchase, mostly because our purchase solicitor was ace.

Our house was on for offers over, but we got it for an offer under. Property is slow to shift, but that's OK when you get here and don't want to leave!

We moved from Greater Manchester to a rural village in Aberdeenshire. To be honest, cost was the initial driver, along with wanting fresh air and freedom for the kids. The link posted by a PP is close to us, nice area.

Broadband is actually better with fewer dropouts and much better speed and consistency.

Little rural school going really well for the kids. Youngest especially who spends more time in the woods than the nursery.

I would never go back. It's almost magical here.

just to say we just had to swap our selling solicitor because we changed estate agent to a quick sale company. We kept the purchase solicitor, she was lovely.

@IKEA888

Dumfries and Galloway has v rural areas... V good house prices great schools and easy access to Glasgow and Edinburgh.

It’s bloody hours to Edinburgh or Glasgow from Dumfries and Galloway!

We are mid relocation to Shetland.
It's beautiful, reasonably priced, rural, friendly, it's a marvellous place.

Also, because I was obsessed by this, I did lot of checking of past flooding and height above sea level.

I’d say don’t do it @YorkshireGirl2016. Scotland is a parochial nightmare with poor infrastructure and transport links. Lots of people hate the English. There’s likely to be constitutional upheaval which will decimate property values for a bit. The weather is terrible. It’s super depressing just now.

I'm English as is my husband. Living and working in Scotland for the last 25 years. I wouldn't live in England again ever. We are live in a rural location and have overhead fibre broadband. Speeds in excess of 100MB. My reasons for being happier here are (in no particular order) better quality of life, lower cost of living, easy access to services such as NHS, fewer right wing arseholes and a strong sense of community. Schools are fantastic too! Okay so the weather isn't as warm, summers are short but the countryside is beautiful x

Hawkmoth where are you?? I want to come! I know Royal Deeside and love around there.
WouldBeGood- I take it you're talking about Brexit when you refer to constitutional upheaval which will decimate property values as that's what 'll happen in the next 6 months ..

1 Hour by train from lockerbie actually.
Dumfries and Galloway is a lovely part of the world and easy access north and south.
Can be in London by train in 4 hours odd

Brexit and independence.

That’s if you live near Lockerbie but Dumfries and Galloway is massive! There are also very few trains especially at night or on a Sunday and the local bus service is poor thanks to defunding. It’s impossible to be In Glasgow or Edinburgh first thing without a mighty early start. It is beautiful but living there is difficult if you want access to anything other than rural pursuits.