Barely two week after we put a sign on the gate, we have sold Sea Neuk. At least, the sale is agreed in principle and it's in the hands of the lawyers. The Scottish system (which I've never been involved in before) doesn't seem quite as different from the English one as it is sometimes said, and there is no legally binding contract at this point so I'm not going to say too much about it in case it falls though. But at the time of writing both sides seem very keen to see things through to completion fairly speedily. Having the survey and valuation done in advance does mean there is less to go wrong at this point.
It turned out to be remarkably easy at least in some respects: all we really had to do was to hang a sign on the gate and wait for the crowds to flood in. We also had a short list of people who had said over the years "if you are ever thinking of selling..." and several of them were still seriously interested. We originally set out intending to use an agent, but that didn't work out for various reasons. Of course it was hard work doing the viewings (my sister did the bulk of this), but the whole process only took 2 weeks from start to finish. A standard way of arranging a sale in Scotland is to ask for sealed bids by a specific closing date, but since we were there and able to talk to the hopeful buyers directly we ended up just accepting a verbal (actually emailed) offer which was then repeated formally through the solicitors. I wouldn't necessarily recommend our course of action to everyone trying to sell a house, but it seems to have worked out reasonably well given the circumstances.
Still got the house clearance to think about, but perhaps life will return to normal soon after that...
