Laws on buying a home for a Yankee?

So, I do not plane to move for five years. I realize I have some time on my hands but I like to have all the facts before I do anything. I have looked at homes in Scotland. I was wondering if Yankee's where allowed to own homes in the UK.

Thank you for reading.

Yes.  Quite a few of us do own homes here.  No law against it.

Hi there

As Onetiger says, there's no law to prohibit or limit an American from ownership of a UK property. If you have the money you can pretty much buy whatever you like !

Looking a little further though, I think what you're getting at is if theres any more obscure laws or practices which may be in effect here. As far as I know and have read there's nothing like that, so you won't get the great grandkid of the person who used to own the house in the 1930's bang on your door and claim it's theirs via some ancestry and local law etc. The more obscure laws like that tend to happen in other foreign countries and hence why's there's many specialists to help many Brits buy abroad to take into a certain countries laws and practices.

Scotland, does have some slight quirks and differences when it comes to house prices and buying, You may see a 'price' however it's not binding, another person may come along and offer more, so you could end up with its purchase price being quite a bit more than it was advertised for. I'm not 100% on this right now, but it's along those lines (I'm not looking at Scotland for buying properties, just skim read it in various magazines etc)

5 years should give you quite some time to save up as much of a deposit as you can to put down if and when you do buy!

Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!

The Scottish system is 'offers over'; you'll tend to see a house advertised as, e.g. Offers over £150,000, and depending on the area and how competitive the market is, offers may need to be anywhere from 5% to even 100% or more (during the height of the housing boom, in some places) above the 'offers over' price. It very much favours the seller, but on the other hand, once an offer is accepted it is legally binding, unlike in England where you can be gazumped.

Cheers DrSuperL !!

Thank you! There are so many great homes! Plus it would be fun to open a B&B.

I was also wondering if it is cheeper to buy or rent?

Hi there,

Cheaper to buy or rent your own home I presume you mean? not renting a B&B to run?!

I think you mean your own home, and the answer to that is what's the size of your wallet/Purse? and what kind of property and long term plans do you have? - costs vary and added to that is of course is what you're after. Some will say if you buy, once the mortgage is paid off then it's cheaper to have bought as you'll have an asset in your name. Other's say renting is cheaper as you are not tied down and can move without hassles later if needed.

Running a B&B is a full time job, and from what I've seen, is quite demanding as well. Good points would be you'll live in the property as well, a couple of rooms to yourselves. The business would be effectively in operation 24 hours aday. If it's something you'd like to do, look into all the financials of it, I'm sure as a foreign investor you can do this, I think it may just take substantial amounts of investments to either take an existing B&B over or to open one up.

Good luck, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Thanks! I meant a home?  The B&B would just be something that would be fun.