Jump to content

Recommended Posts

My colleague has been house hunting for the perfect place for her and her family for around 18 months. During that time they have accepted offers on their own place 3 times having put the house back on the market. In the first two cases the buyers were prepared to wait until my colleague had her perfect house only to find their survey's had been a waste of money.


This seems wrong to me as it's unfair to the potential buyer. I've never actually sold a place in my life so it's easy for me to think my colleague is just being greedy. From the little I know this scenario would not happen in Scotland due to different regulations/laws in place. Why not here?

I think in Scotland if you want to buy a house you just put your best bid in, and everyone that does so has to have their own survey/valuation first (it is binding bid)- so say 5 people want a house- 5 surveys and only one is used, and 4 are wasted of money. That's why everyone likes chain free sales here.
The Scottish system is very much a sellers market. The property tends to be undervalued like an auction, with the successful sealed bid often way over the advertised 'valuation'. The legally binding bid does cut out gazumping/gazundering though, but as has already been pointed out, the buyers have to fork out up-front costs for surveys regardless of whether their bid is successful or not. I saw an episode of Location x 3 recently where they were in Edinburgh, and P&K put in bids over the phone as per their standard programme format, which isn't the Scottish way, so not sure what was going on then, perhaps agreed beforehand for TV 'entertainment' purposes...
If you are selling for a commission of say 1%, and the owner wants another ?50k for example, then the commission isn't that much more for the agent, so not really worth it for them, but of course it is for the owners. It's really going to be the owner driving the increase.

When prices are rising very fast, the sellers looking to buy (your colleague Alan Medic) can find themselves priced out of the market during the course of their search. So while they might want to honour the original price agreed with their buyers, they could then find that they simply don't have the money they need for their next purchase. It's a reason for gazumping and no, to the vast majority of estate agents the loss of that sale is simply not worth it in terms of the extra ?50 or whatever.


So in a rising market, beware of the seller who does not have their onward move sorted. If you have a choice of two properties, always favour the one at the end of a chain if you possibly can.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • "What's worse is that the perceived 20 billion black hole has increased to 30 billion in a year. Is there a risk that after 5 years it could be as high as 70 billion ???" Why is it perceived, Reeves is responsible for doubling the "black hole" to £20b through the public sector pay increases. You can't live beyond your means and when you try you go bankrupt pdq. In 4 yrs time if this Govt survives that long and the country doesn't go bust before then, in 2029 I dread to think the state the country will be in.  At least Sunak and co had inflation back to 2% with unemployment being stable and not rising.   
    • He seemed to me to be fully immersed in the Jeremy Corbyn ethos of the Labour Party. I dint think that (and self describing as a Marxist) would have helped much when Labour was changed under Starmer. There was a purge of people as far left as him that he was lucky to survive once in my opinion.   Stuff like this heavy endorsement of Momentum and Corbyn. It doesn't wash with a party that is in actual government.   https://labourlist.org/2020/04/forward-momentum-weve-launched-to-change-it-from-the-bottom-up/
    • I perceive the problem.simply as spending too much without first shoring up the economy.  If the government had reduced borrowing,  and as much as most hate the idea, reduced government deiartment spending (so called austerity) and not bowed to union pressures for pay rises, then encouraged businesses to grow, extra cash would have entered the coffers and at a later stage when the economy was in a stronger position rises in NI or taxes would have a lesser impact, but instead Reeves turned that on its head by increasing ni which has killed growth, increased prices and shimmied the economy.  What's worse is that the perceived 20 billion black hole has increased to 30 billion in a year. Is there a risk that after 5 years it could be as high as 70 billion ???     
    • That petition is bananas.   If you want a youth centre there pay the landlord the same rent a Londis would and build it yourself or shut the f**k up to be honest. Wasting our MPs time with this trivial nonsense is appalling. If your kids are still out at 1am on a school night you've got bigger problems than vapes and booze and hot sausage rolls. 
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...