Sale and Purchase Guide

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Sale and Purchase Guide

The purpose of this guide is to provide information about the legal aspects of the sale and purchase of residential property in Scotland.

The solicitor will obtain the seller's title deeds from the seller or his lender and check that these contain no unusual terms and conditions. If a purchaser is interested in the property he will visit it and if he thinks that he may offer for it he will ask his solicitor to note his interest with the seller's agent.

Survey Report

The next step is for the purchaser, his solicitor or lender to instruct a survey of the property. A surveyor may be asked to provide on of several types of report. The most common of these are:

Valuation Report
This is generally carried out on the instructions of a lending institution before making an offer of loan on a property. It is paid for by the purchaser and as a result the purchaser is normally given a copy. Although the Valuation Report may draw attention to serious defects in the property it is not comprehensive.
R.I.C.S. Survey
This is generally provided on pre-printed forms supplied by The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. It gives greater detail than the Valuation Report but is still limited in its scope. The Surveyor will only report on those areas that he has managed to inspect. This type of survey is necessarily more expensive than the Valuation Report.
Structural Engineer's Report
A Structural Engineer's Report is a detailed Report on the structure of a property and will involve the Structural Engineer exposing parts of the property that are normally hidden. This type of Report is most commonly instructed where a house is of a non-traditional construction and is often obtained in addition to a Valuation Report of R.I.C.S. Survey.
Specialist Survey
This is instructed where damp, wet rot, dry rot or woodworm is obvious or likely to exist in a property. The Survey Report will detail the problems and indicate how the Surveyor's company will remedy these if they are asked to carry out the remedial work to the property.

On receiving the survey and once his lender has agreed to provide an offer of loan; the purchaser is in a position to enter negotiations for the purchase of the property. Depending on the amount of interest in the property the purchaser may either:

make an immediate offer for the property; or
make an offer at a closing date.

If there is a closing date set, all parties willing to offer will be advised that their offers have to be with the selling agents at a specified time on a particular date. It is then for the seller to decide which of the offers received he wishes to accept, if any. When a seller decides that an offer is to be accepted he instructs his solicitor to conclude missives.

The Missives

In Scotland the contract for the sale and purchase of property is contained in a series of formal letters known as Missives.

The Missives commence with the offer submitted by the purchaser's solicitor. In the event of the offer being acceptable to the seller his solicitor will generally telephone the purchaser's solicitor to let him know this and follow it up in writing. It is rare for the seller's solicitor to issue an unconditional acceptance of the offer, as the offer will contain a number of detailed items to which he will wish to respond. Generally the seller's solicitor will indicate that the offer is accepted in principle but will make a number of qualifications to it. If these qualifications are acceptable to the purchaser he will issue a formal letter concluding the bargain. If the qualifications are not wholly acceptable it will be necessary for further formal letters to pass between the seller's solicitor and the purchaser's solicitor until agreement is reached and the bargain concluded. Only once all matters are agreed between the seller and the purchaser and a letter concluding the bargain has been issued is the contract between the seller and the purchaser legally binding.

The price and date of entry

The whole price is payable on the date of entry agreed. It is not normal practice in Scotland for the seller to ask for a deposit. It is the purchaser's obligation to have the whole price available for the date of entry whether the funds are provided from private resources or by a lender. It is the seller's obligation to provide the keys and vacant possession to the property on the date of entry and his solicitor will be instructed to deal with the conveyancing matters in time for that date.

This is only a brief guide to the services that your solicitor provides when you sell or purchase a house. We shall be pleased to deal with any further questions that you may have about selling or purchasing property in Scotland.