Selling · 2 min read
How to handle offers when you sell your own home
How to check a buyer’s position, negotiate, deal with multiple offers and understand when a sale becomes binding in England, Wales and Scotland.
The best offer isn’t always the highest one. It’s the one most likely to reach completion, at a price and timetable you’re happy with.
Ask for offers in writing
An email is fine. Ask buyers to include the amount, how they’ll pay, their position, preferred timescale, and their solicitor’s details.
Check the buyer’s position
- Funding: a mortgage agreement in principle, or proof of funds for cash buyers.
- Chain: first-time buyers and buyers with nothing to sell are lower risk. A buyer whose own home is “sold subject to contract” is next best.
- Deposit: how much they have, and that it’s available.
- Timing: does their timetable fit yours?
Negotiating
- Decide your lowest acceptable price before you start, and keep it to yourself.
- Counter with a figure and a reason (“similar homes nearby sold for…”).
- Use non-price terms: completion date, curtains, appliances, a garden shed.
- Keep it polite and businesslike. You may be dealing with this person for months.
More than one interested buyer
Tell each buyer there is other interest and ask for best and final offers by a set date and time, in writing. Treat everyone the same way and tell them the outcome promptly.
When is an accepted offer binding?
England and Wales: not until contracts are exchanged. Citizens Advice notes that, even after accepting an offer, there’s nothing in law to stop a seller accepting a higher one from someone else, and buyers can also pull out before exchange. Accepting a higher offer after agreeing a sale is called gazumping; a buyer cutting their offer late on is gazundering. Many sellers take the home off the market once they accept an offer, to show good faith.
Scotland: offers are made formally through solicitors, often by a closing date. The bargain becomes binding once missives are concluded. See our Scotland guide.
After you accept
Send a memorandum of sale to both solicitors (see conveyancing), agree what’s included in the sale on the TA10 form, and mark your OpenSell listing as sold when the time is right, which stops new enquiries.
Sources
Last reviewed . This guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. Rules differ across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and can change; check with a solicitor or conveyancer about your own sale.