House Exchange - How to do it?

[maddy]

A friend out in Spain is looking to do a house swap with someone in the uk as neither are having any joy in selling their houses.

I am trying to find info on this, is it possible, costs involved, etc and wondered of someone could give me a start point, to help her out? I havent heard of it before.

[Beachcomber]

It's called a 'permuta'. The procedure is carried out before a notary in the same way as a purchase/sale attracting similar taxes and expenses. There are various requirements regarding official valuations and certificates of no debts from the UK land registry.

[El Pirata]

Great idea in theory. Very unlikely to succeed in practise.

[Beachcomber]

There is an established procedure for this kind of transaction and there is no reason why it should not reach a satisfactory conclusion as long as all of the requirements can be met.

[El Pirata]

I am sure the procedure is defined and have complete confidence in it. My pessimism is directed at the idea that two people can swap homes & countries and reach agreement on price/difference etc. etc.

I have never seen a proposed deal work out.

[Bowler]

Maybe you just haven't been around long enough, I've witnessed this twice successfully.

[El Pirata]

I've had 2 or 3 potentials myself where parties "fell out" over minor details (excuses), and heard from other agents about at least 7 or 8 that have failed before contracts being signed.

I found there were real discrepancies in peoples valuations of their own properties versus their valuations of other peoples. Funny phenomenon...

Not a fan of this method. If someone wants to live in another country they should sell their house and buy another one. The likelihood of matching someone selling a property you like (in another country) and that person liking your property (in another country) is small enough to make me not want to bother.

[Beachcomber]

The whole point is that the people involved do not value their own properties. The transaction is based on professionally assessed values in both countries. If neither the participating parties nor their agents or advisors were aware of this fact or did not comply with the requirement it is not surprising that the matters failed to proceed to completion.

It may be germane that the successful transactions of which I am aware did not involve estate agents neither were any Spanish lawyers involved to complicate the issues.

[El Pirata]

Very true.

I did suggest that the valuation route would be the best way to proceed but both parties (in the ones I dealt with) wanted to be able to sell their house and get a nice lump sum out of the other party to start them off in the other country.

At the time I was not aware of the official route actually being this. It wasn't even a service we offered, but people came to us asking us to either find them a property for exchange here or in the UK and we kind of "fell" into it rather than turn the business away.