Does it kick in 1 (one) millimetre over the border? What if a property
straddles the border?

MM

Mike Mitchell wrote:

Does it kick in 1 (one) millimetre over the border? What if a property
straddles the border?

MM
Looking for something else I see that the legal beagles are looking into
the Scottish system. I'd always thought that it was superior to our
English one, but it seems that estate agents have started to utilise a
flaw in it to up house prices. They simply advertise the house as
offers over £X when the property is worth at least £2X, there is such a
rush for the property that people end up paying £2X+.

--
Please do not reply by Email, as all
emails to this address are automatically deleted.

Looking for something else I see that the legal beagles are looking into
the Scottish system. I'd always thought that it was superior to our
English one, but it seems that estate agents have started to utilise a
flaw in it to up house prices. They simply advertise the house as
offers over £X when the property is worth at least £2X, there is such a
rush for the property that people end up paying £2X+.

This has been the case in Scotland for many years. Like any other house
purchase its up to the potential buyer to figure out what the property is
worth to him/her.

One problem being addressed is the multiple survey. The system is such that
the survey must be made prior to a formal offer being made. This can mean 10
or more surveys being made on the same property by the various interested
parties (often by the same firm) This can be a costly business if offers
are unsuccessful on a succession of properties by an over optimistic bidder.

Seems that a survey is undertaken by the seller and made available to the
any potential buyers.
This has some drawbacks but the trial is still under way (AFAIK)

I still think that the system of making up your mind time and making a
legally binding offer stops most of the abuses of the English system - can't
sell my own house etc and the various dodges employed by sellers and buyers
to manipulate the price up or down.




-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 18:34:03 +0100, "sid" wrote:

I still think that the system of making up your mind time and making a
legally binding offer stops most of the abuses of the English system - can't
sell my own house etc and the various dodges employed by sellers and buyers
to manipulate the price up or down.

Yes, make it legally binding (or lose the 10% deposit), but cease this
ridiculous "offers over" scam. I dabbled with RightMove again today,
whilst waiting for my real RM email updates to arrive for Lincs etc,
and I played "what ifs" on a number of locations, Ayrshire being one
of them. I saw a couple of fantastic, huge properties, and the OO
price was £149,950 for one and around £155K for the other. Houses that
would cost £400K in Bucks at least. Now, I reckon that both these
prices, even for Ayrshire where property is obviously cheaper, are
just come-ons to temp prospective buyers to at least have a look. I
think the £149K house would probably go for around £180 - 190K, but I
have no idea.

I believe that when it comes to the biggest asset most of us will ever
acquire, there is no room for funny business and vendors should state
the price up front as in England and Wales. As for having to have
surveys done on the same house, what if the same surveyor is hired by
three or four different buyers? I'll bet he has invested in a very
expensive photocopier! Talk about money for old rope.

MM

"Mike Mitchell" wrote
| I believe that when it comes to the biggest asset most of us
| will ever acquire, there is no room for funny business and
| vendors should state the price up front as in England and
| Wales.

Where vendors consider themselves lucky if they get 'full asking price' and
everyone sits around worrying about being gazumped the day before they move
out/in.

Owain

In message , Mike Mitchell
writes
On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 18:34:03 +0100, "sid" wrote:

I still think that the system of making up your mind time and making a
legally binding offer stops most of the abuses of the English system - can't
sell my own house etc and the various dodges employed by sellers and buyers
to manipulate the price up or down.

Yes, make it legally binding (or lose the 10% deposit), but cease this
ridiculous "offers over" scam. I dabbled with RightMove again today,
whilst waiting for my real RM email updates to arrive for Lincs etc,
and I played "what ifs" on a number of locations, Ayrshire being one
of them. I saw a couple of fantastic, huge properties, and the OO
price was £149,950 for one and around £155K for the other. Houses that
would cost £400K in Bucks at least. Now, I reckon that both these
prices, even for Ayrshire where property is obviously cheaper, are
just come-ons to temp prospective buyers to at least have a look. I
think the £149K house would probably go for around £180 - 190K, but I
have no idea.

I believe that when it comes to the biggest asset most of us will ever
acquire, there is no room for funny business and vendors should state
the price up front as in England and Wales. As for having to have
surveys done on the same house, what if the same surveyor is hired by
three or four different buyers? I'll bet he has invested in a very
expensive photocopier! Talk about money for old rope.

MM

Mike,

you really seem to have been through it!

Offers over, and Guide prices, are nothing new and have been used in
england aswell as scotland for years. Auctions are prime examples,
although the bidding is not blind.

In England, I often invited interested parties to make their "Best &
Final Offers In Writing" by a particular deadline and, whilst never
achieving 2x the asking price, there were often some fascinating high
offers.

I have also set Guide prices particularly low where sellers had to sell
very fast - this usually resulted in many fast offers around the Guide
price with the opportunity to bid the price up to its best at the time.
I must stress that it was always the buyers that bid the price up, and
not the seller.

Why not try it - Guide Price £170,000 or Offers Over £170,000. Dont
forget, whatever offer you get, if you dont like it, you dont have to
take it.

As for surveyors, in my 17 years in the business, I can probably count
on 1 hand the number of times the same surveyor was instructed by 2 or
more buyers.



--
Richard Faulkner

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:59:15 +0100, Richard Faulkner
wrote:

Why not try it - Guide Price £170,000 or Offers Over £170,000. Dont
forget, whatever offer you get, if you dont like it, you dont have to
take it.

It's an idea that I haven't thought of. I had indeed thought of
auctioning it, or running a competition, but not to state an
artificially low price to tempt buyers. Such a ploy is not widely used
in England, however, and I think a lot of buyers would steer clear in
the belief that it is just a ramshackle old dosser's hut that the
agent wants to shift quickly.

Nevertheless, your suggestion has merit and I'll certainly consider it
if Connells' six-week challenge proves unsuccessful.

How about modifying the wording: "Only Cash Offers Over £170,000
Considered"? That would help filter out the time-wasters.

MM

sid wrote:

Broadback had written:
Looking for something else I see that the legal beagles are looking into
the Scottish system. I'd always thought that it was superior to our
English one, but it seems that estate agents have started to utilise a
flaw in it to up house prices. They simply advertise the house as
offers over £X when the property is worth at least £2X, there is such a
rush for the property that people end up paying £2X+.

The Scottish bidding system is "blind" so there's no way to get into a
direct counter-bidding war. What the artificially low "offers-over"
price does is to greatly increase everyone's uncertainty about how much
to bid, in the hope that the high bids will go higher still.

In rural areas the overbid factor is nothing like as high as 2, but the
infection is spreading...

As sid says:
its up to the potential buyer to figure out what the property is worth
to him/her.

If you've set your sights on one particular property, you'll want to be
sure that yours is the highest bid, so you'll almost certainly have to
offer more than you feel it's "really" worth. In practice, it's much
more about deciding what your spending limit is, and sticking to it.

I still think that the system of making up your mind time and making a
legally binding offer stops most of the abuses of the English system

To clarify that: once the vendor has decided to accept someone's offer -
including the price, but also any other conditions that have been
mutually agreed - it then becomes a legally binding contract to sell and
to buy.

That's the good part of the Scottish system; the less good part is the
blind bidding process by which you get there.


--
Ian White

"Mike Mitchell" wrote
| Does it kick in 1 (one) millimetre over the border?

Yes, if the border can be established to the mm.

| What if a property straddles the border?

Effectively there would be two separate sales, in two separate
jurisdictions, with two separate land registries. There would after all be
two separate sets of council tax to pay.

I think.

Owain

| Does it kick in 1 (one) millimetre over the border?

Yes, if the border can be established to the mm.

How would you manage to do that then?

Don't be silly. properties are either registered as Scottish or English.
Nobody gets 2 sets of votes, two different postal deliveries, rubbish
collections etc.


| What if a property straddles the border?

Effectively there would be two separate sales, in two separate
jurisdictions, with two separate land registries. There would after all be
two separate sets of council tax to pay.

I think.

Don't be silly (again)





-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =-----

"sid" wrote
| | Does it kick in 1 (one) millimetre over the border?
| Yes, if the border can be established to the mm.
| How would you manage to do that then?

In the same way as you establish property boundaries in any other
circumstance. The mm might be slightly extreme in practice, but the
principle is valid in law.

| Don't be silly. properties are either registered as Scottish or
| English. Nobody gets 2 sets of votes, two different postal
| deliveries, rubbish collections etc.

You can have as many votes as you have entries on the electoral register (it
is illegal to use more than one in the same election; i.e. if you have a 2nd
home you can vote in two different local council elections but you cannot
vote twice in a general or European election).

As for postal deliveries and rubbish collections, that depends on how the
relevant authorities organise their routes. What do you think happens when
the boundary between council areas runs down the middle of the road.

| | What if a property straddles the border?
| Effectively there would be two separate sales, in two
| separate jurisdictions, with two separate land registries.
| There would after all be two separate sets of council tax
| to pay.
| Don't be silly (again)

So what if someone buys adjoining properties, one in England and one in
Scotland, and merges them, or builds across the border? The international
boundary doesn't move because someone puts a shed over it.

I'm sure I've read of a pub where one end of the bar is in a different
licensing authority than the other, and it is/was established on the
NI/Irish border to build agricultural sheds spanning the border to
facilitate smuggling.

Owain

In article , owain41276
@stirlingcity.co.uk says...

So what if someone buys adjoining properties, one in England and one in
Scotland, and merges them, or builds across the border? The international
boundary doesn't move because someone puts a shed over it.

Council borders can, though. When the Braehead shopping centre opened,
it lay partly in Glasgow and partly in Renfrewshire - the Sainsbury's
store straddled the border, so they had to get off-licences from both
licensing boards. They've since shifted the border so the whole centre
is in Glasgow.

There are many properties (generally larger farms/estates) which
straddle county boundaries within Scotland, and those have to be
registered separately in each registration county. I suspect there will
be some which cross the English border, and the same principle will
apply.

David

Owain wrote:

I'm sure I've read of a pub where one end of the bar is in a different
licensing authority than the other,

There was one on the Leith-Edinburgh border. Makes no difference now, of
course, as Leith has become part of Edinburgh.

Sheila