Buying a home in UK

I was not sure where to put this but....

I plan to buy a house in the UK soon. The process seems very different here than in the US. Has anyone that has been through it before have any advice or tips? If it is my first home purchase in the UK, and I own property already in the US, can I claim any first-time buyer benefits?

I was not sure where to put this but....

I plan to buy a house in the UK soon. The process seems very different here than in the US. Has anyone that has been through it before have any advice or tips? If it is my first home purchase in the UK, and I own property already in the US, can I claim any first-time buyer benefits?

Are you in England, Scotland, Wales or NI? Your answers will vary depending on what country you are in.

In Scotland,  you would not qualify as a first time home buyer as you have owned property, regardless of the country you resided in or the location of the property.

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Just be warned that the system here is VERY different and backwards (in England).  But it’s the way it’s always been done. So not going to change!

But yeah, I would say the majority of us regulars are homeowners. It *is* possible to survive the process 

Are you in England, Scotland, Wales or NI? Your answers will vary depending on what country you are in.

In Scotland,  you would not qualify as a first time home buyer as you have owned property, regardless of the country you resided in or the location of the property.

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That is the same rule for England for first time buyers.

Thank you. I am in London.

@KFdancer what specifically makes the process here feel different and ‘backwards’?

ANYONE can back up up until the day of sale. So you can potentially wait months for your chain to complete and have everything ready to go, have spent a couple of thousand pounds in survey and solicitor fees, and someone in the chain changes their mind.  The chain falls apart and everyone loses all the money they’ve put in.

Also Gazzumping is VERY real and you don’t know if the seller is being honest or not .

In other words, an accepted offer is NO guarantee until contracts exchange. In the house I bought, we exchanged and completed on the same day.  Took 13 weeks and it was one house. No chain. As simple as a transaction could be, with the exception that we had a mortgage and were not cash buyers. It can be quite a stressful process.

This is England, I understand Scotland has a much better buying/selling process.