If you’ve been looking at properties in Scotland, you’ll have noticed that they follow a different buying system than the rest of the UK. They ask for “offers over” the asking price. So if you’re ideal home is £200,000 in England, you could put an offer in at that price. In Scotland, you’d have to go in over that mark. And here’s the clincher: You don’t know how much more another buyer has offered. You could lose the home you want by bidding too low, which means that the power stays with the seller.

Depending on the property market, you’re expected to pay around 10-20% over the starting offer. Quite a large amount more. The good thing about this, is that this does work in favour of the buyer – if the market is bad, you can offer less. It’s a very strange system indeed.,

But it certainly makes the Scottish property market stronger. English buyers tend to ‘over bid’ which drives the property market inflation up. The Scottish property market isn’t in nearly as sore a state as the rest of the UK. There’s good reason for it. You might still find that some properties are sold at a fixed price and this is a direct correlation to how well the property market is doing. If the majority of the properties are sold as ‘offers over’ then the market in that area is in pretty good shape. ‘Fixed price’ and you’re looking at a shaky market, one where the buyer can take control and get themselves a great deal.

There are pros and cons to the ‘offers over’ system, as at first glance it appears to favour the buyer. But the pitfalls put the strength back into the hands of the seller. It might take a while longer to find your dream home in Scotland, and you could lose out on a couple you really like, but you get a much better idea of the property market and how best to bid for the house you want. That information is priceless.

It’s almost a year since Home Information Packs (HIPs) were introduced in England and Wales, and now Scotland has followed in their footsteps, with the introduction of Home Reports.

As of the 1st December 2008, everyone selling residential property in Scotland has to produce a Home Report. It’s expected to cost sellers in the region of £500 to £800 to have the report produced, as it involves a so-called ‘single seller survey’ and valuation by a surveyor. The report consists of three main documents:

• A Single Survey – which is an assessment produced by a surveyor of the condition of the property, whether it’s accessible for people with particular needs and a current valuation of the property.
• An Energy Report – which is an assessment carried out by a surveyor of the energy efficiency of the property and its environmental impact. Where applicable, they’ll also include ideas for improving energy efficiency.
• A Property Questionnaire – filled out by the seller of the home, it has key information about the property, such as the Council Tax rate, parking facilities and maintenance costs.

Like HIPs, the theory behind Home Reports is that it will provide buyers with extra information about the property they’re interested in and avoid the need for multiple surveys to be carried out.

According to some critics, the potential downside is that, for properties that don’t sell quickly and need improvement work carried out to help their selling ability, the Home Reports will need to be updated again after the work has been carried out. This will cost another £80 to £150, so could make the Home Report rather pricey. Of course, one way around it would be to do any improvement work first, before you put your house on the market, to avoid unnecessary costs further down the line.