Scottish house buying / selling process

[PenguinLover24]

A family member has inherited a home and as we've both never done this before we're a bit confused! Can someone explain this situation to us? A closing date has been set and three offers have been made already. One of the potential buyers have said in their note that it isn't their final offer. If they don't know what anyone else is bidding, how do they know whether to submit another offer or not?

So if a closing date is set that should mean that any potential buyers should make their best and final offer through their solicitor. You would then have time to consider the offers and choose one if it suits you. This is to avoid bidding wars and gazumping. However, this buyer is trying to fly under the radar and mention that if they’re not the highest bidder then they’re willing to be contacted again and will offer more.

Do you know if your offers are all coming through a solicitor for each interested party? Maybe they’re talking directly to the estate agents, which isn’t supposed to happen.

Chat to your EA to try and get a picture and decide what you’d like to do next. Definitely frowned upon though! Good luck with the sale.

Caveat to say - the above is true if these are the final offers made after a closing date. Prior to a closing date being set, anyone can make any number of offers and they can be accepted. If the market is good then sellers will usually wait until the closing date before choosing a buyer.

Thank you! We don't know if they're coming through the solicitors as we didn't ask that. We have a portal where the offers are and the agents put comments in with things like first time buyers, not final offer etc. I'm just confused at why this seller said this in the note but how do they know they need to increase if it's all secret service 🤣 closes today at noon so maybe some last minute things might happen, it's all very interesting and exciting 🤣

If closing hasn’t happened yet, you shouldn’t be told what the bids are and the interested parties very definitely shouldn’t be told what they are before closing. It’s a “sealed bids” system for a reason.

After the bids are “opened”, you can then choose which one you want. This doesn’t have to be the highest one - it could be the one in the position to move the quickest so that you can realise the money for the estate - although that’s choice for the executors.

Technically you can go back to someone afterwards to ask them if they want to pay more - but it’s not good practice. I was in the unusual situation recently of wanting to buy my father’s place (my not so db who is an equal beneficiary to me insisted on it going on the market and the executors gave in to his bullying ) and I got the executors to agree that I had the right to exceed any bid if it went to closing - but they rightly said that the estate agent would have to inform potential bidders of this. In the event it went for silly money and I declined to exceed the highest bid.

Have you got confirmation yet? Technically the sale can’t complete until you’ve got confirmation.

Strange, the estate agent has a portal and they upload the offer every time one is submitted and we can see how much people have offered 🤔 it closes at 12 noon, this is why I'm so confused 🤣

People can make offers at any time - purple bricks does similar with their app. You see it coming in.

One of the potential buyers have said in their note that it isn't their final offer.

Then they're an idiot! You put your best and final offer in if it goes to a closing date.

That's what I thought 🤣

A closing date means that the best and final offers go via solicitors to the estate agent. It’s a sealed bid system.