Buyers and sellers advised to work together on completion date delays

On Tuesday the Scottish Government issued fresh guidance for people buying or selling their homes.

It said that people are allowed to move home but only where “reasonably necessary” and urged people to delay moving where possible while the lockdown is in place.

It advises that in light of the risks from coronavirus “no one should be contemplating a home move involving not only themselves but any other parties in the process, eg sellers still in residence, solicitors, surveyors, removal companies or estate agents and their relevant support staff. A home move involves many others, over and above the purchaser, who should not be asked to place themselves at risk”.

The document urges buyers and sellers who have set completion dates to work together and agree a delay. Anyone who has symptoms of the virus and is self-isolating should under no circumstances move home.

In some cases an extension may breach the terms of buyers’ mortgage agreement. Lenders are working to enable customers to extend their mortgage offer so they can move at a later date.

If you absolutely must move, the guidelines say only to do so if social distancing requirements can be maintained. The property you are moving into should be vacated by the time you arrive there.

If your home is currently on the market there should be no viewings and no one involved in marketing your property should visit you at home. You can conduct virtual viewings and are free to accept offers on your property but should be aware that completion may take longer than usual.

Registers of Scotland (RoS), the body that records new sales, is rushing to put a digital system in place after suspending its applications record last week. RoS opens and scans more than 2,000 documents each day and decided it could no longer do so safely in light of Covid-19.

A spokesman said: The decision to temporarily close the applications record was done to safeguard the health and wellbeing of everyone.

“Following the temporary closure announcement, the Law Society of Scotland advised their solicitor members that they should not complete housing transactions while the application record was closed.

“As a result, Registers of Scotland immediately put in place a process to liaise with solicitors to ensure that no one with an urgent need to complete their housing transaction was prevented from doing do.

“Since then, our staff have been working around the clock to make sure that anyone who urgently needs to complete their housing transaction is in a position to do so and they have prioritised the most urgent cases.

“On Thursday last week, RoS, Law Society of Scotland and UK Finance agreed a process that will enable those transactions that cannot be postponed to be completed more sustainably going forward. In addition, we are working on a solution to allow digital applications to be submitted instead of a paper process.”