Buying house in Scotland and selling in England

[QWH]

Hi. We are hoping to move from England to the Stirlingshire area (Drymen, killearn, Kippen). How likely is it that we would have an offer accepted by a seller in Scotland if we have to sell our house at the same time as part of the chain. Selling our property and then renting first isn’t possible, therefore how can we make ourselves more attractive to the buyer? TIA.

We sold in England and then rented in Scotland before buying. We did look into the possibilities of doing it all in one go and were told we’d need a good solicitor who understands both markets. I do know people here (in Scotland) who have accepted offers from buyers in England so it is possible - I imagine o make yourselves as attractive as possible you’ll need to not be in a chain behind you (eg your buyer could be in rented) and perhaps some way down the conveyancing on your sale before you offer in Scotland.

Fairly low I would think. Those places have always been fairly popular places to move to (don't know whether this has changed with cost of living crisis), so I'm not sure why anyone would chose a buyer with a chain in England over a Scottish one. 😥

Like the poster above we sold our house in England and rented.

You might be better to sell first and try to rent. We sold fairly recently, and there were a couple of English buyers in the mix of offers we received. Have to say I wouldn’t have touched them with a barge pole as chains seem to collapse with amazing regularity in England. We just couldn’t risk it.

In Scotland, the sale is agreed when missives are signed. That’s generally 4-6 weeks max after an offer is accepted,. At that point you are committed, although the actual completion date may be a way off. If you don’t make the agreed date, you can be sued for interest plus costs. Apologies if you know this already.

I have bought and sold several times in Scotland, and in our case the house has stayed on the market until missives are concluded and obviously the seller is still free to accept a better offer.

In short, if you are buying in a popular area, you will struggle to be taken seriously if you are in a chain.

We have moved house four times and have been fortunate that non of the chains collapsed. Neither have any of my friends. But is does take about 3-4 months to get over the finishing post. It doesn’t have to take this long if all parties get information promptly to their solicitors and insist on regular contact with them.

Tbh the whole buying process moves a lot quicker in scotland. You can put an offer in & be in new home within 5 or 6 weeks, most people won't look at offers from anyone who's not always got an offer agreed on their house or bare minimum already on the market.

Agree with others, there is lots of demand for good properties in that area. The Scottish sealed bids system favours those chain-free or selling in Scotland over someone with a property to sell in England, as the seller often has a summary of close bids to choose from, and will usually select the one that seems most likely to progress without a hitch e.g. chain collapsing.

If this is what you need to do, you should try and get an ‘edge’ possibly offering over the market rate (so well above home report value) which could be difficult if you have a mortgage as the value over HRV is not mortgageable.

If you did choose to rent first, there is no minimum term on rental agreements in Scotland, you just give a month’s notice, so this can be an ideal way to make the move.

I didn’t realise that about no minimum term for renting in Scotland. Thank you.

Also if you need a solicitor who understands both markets use a local firm in North Cumbria (Carlisle area) or Northumberland as they deal with English/Scottish chains quite regularly due to the location

Generally speaking, we wouldn’t accept an offer from an English buyer still to sell. It just takes too long and is too unstable. We have done it before so it’s not unheard of. I’d just say it’s more likely we would reject your offer.

Sell and rent however, if you do rent do not tell the agent you are renting while looking to buy. Again, you are likely to be refused in favour of someone who is likely to rent longer term. Yes, that person may also be fibbing. If you move here low season and it’s just for a couple of months, it might be worth looking at a holiday let rather than a residential let. Or offer your landlord an incentive to rent while you look to buy.

You need separate solicitors unless you find someone who can do both English and Scottish Conveyancing.

We did this - albeit a long time ago. It was a total faff as we did need two sets of solicitors, one to handle the sale in England, another to handle the purchase in Scotland. I would hope that communication between solicitors is better than it was when we did it and that they'd have moved on from faxes and letters. If you can find a solicitor who can handle both transactions that'd be ideal, would say you're more likely to find a Scottish law firm who can do English conveyancing than the other way around.

We managed to do it without renting in one of the areas you mentioned. There is very little rental property large enough for a family and what there is was unaffordable for us whilst also doing a house sale. And I absolutely didn’t want the dc to start at one school and then have to move. But we paid well over the odds for the privilege - not great as now the markets aren’t doing so well. But our chain did collapse around us and the Scottish sellers waited on us for over half a year to find another buyer and start again. We were lucky that they weren’t in a rush as it was someone moving in with a partner who already had a house. Good luck! It was a pretty stressful time but now we’re here we have found it a lovely and very friendly area !

Personally I would sell in England then rent in Scotland first.

I wish we did this 20 years ago would have saved a lot of stress and money. our buyer pulled out our London flat but we had committed on the Scottish house but we couldn’t complete so we were fined the SVR plus a half for every month we couldn’t complete (ended up 3 months). We had to quickly sell our flat cheaply to an investor too. It was a nightmare oh and I was pregnant at the time.

The only way to make yourself attractive is to offer way off the HR value. We moved into rented while we sold our house in England. We were in rented far longer that I thought we would be as there is a real shortage of property in the area of Glasgow we were looking. But it did all work out in the end. The house we closed on came back onto the market after the English chain of the buyers collapsed and we were able to move very quickly. I do think there is a strong perception in Scotland that English house chains collapse all the time. It’s hard to explain that for most people they do go through as people have invested time and money in the process. If you do have an offer accepted you just make it clear you have a property to sell and you won’t be signing the missives until you have concluded that sale.

We ended up owning two houses for about three months and were fortunate enough we could afford it. Moved in June this year and the sale in England completed last day of august.

Best to treat them as two independent transactions.