Selling Property Without Viewings and Discreetly

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Although viewings, where potential buyers come to tour properties, can be an important part of the process of selling a freehold or leasehold house or flat, they are not essential. There can be many reasons for wanting to sell discretely without viewings, such as a desire for privacy, and this guide shows how to still get a fair and fast offer from a buyer when selling this way.

1. What are viewings when trying to sell a property?
2. What does it mean to sell a home without viewings or discreetly?
3. Possible benefits of selling your flat or house without viewings
4. Do you have to tell buyers why you’re trying to sell without viewings?
5. Four options for selling a home with varying levels of discretion
6. Preparing your property for sale without viewings
7. Top questions about selling a property without viewings

What are viewings when trying to sell a property?

Viewings can often be an essential part of the process of selling a property, whether it’s a freehold home where you own the building and the land on which it is located completely, or whether it’s a leasehold house or flat where you own the property for a set number of years as detailed in a lease agreement you sign with the freeholder, and pay an annual ground rent.
At a typical viewing, either the owner or their designated representative – for example, an estate agent or auction house staff member – will give potential buyers a tour of the inside and the outside of the property, promoting its main features and answering any questions they have.
During a viewing, people who might be interested in making an offer on the property will have the chance to pay close attention to every possible aspect, ranging from specific issues such as whether the light switches work through to being made aware of any large-scale structural damage to the home, as Which? explains.
Anyone looking to buy a home might see something during a viewing that makes them change their mind and lose interest in making an offer, but the opposite can also be true and seeing a flat or house in person may be the final step they needed to decide on buying the property.
If you are interested in selling your home – whether that’s because it’s a second house or flat that you no longer want to own, you need to sell because you’re relocating somewhere else in the UK, or any other justification – you may be wary about having viewings, as the next section of this guide details.
For those homeowners who are looking to sell their property without having viewings, in other words doing so discretely, the good news is that it’s entirely feasible. You may have to consider alternative methods of selling, but you can still find ways to get a speedy and fair offer.

What does it mean to sell a home without viewings or discreetly?

One strategy when selling a freehold or leasehold property is doing so discreetly, which can mean without having any viewings where potential buyers will tour your home.
A related situation is trying to sell your house or flat without the neighbours knowing, which can also mean trying to find a buyer without having viewings, but also taking additional steps to make the sale as discrete as possible by reducing the number of people that will know about your attempt to sell.
This guide assumes that you’re attempting primarily to sell your home without viewings, and there can be a number of reasons for why you’re interested in pursuing this strategy.
Wanting privacy is usually the top explanation for why someone wants to sell their house or flat without having any viewings. You may be living in a situation with problem neighbours and be worried that the neighbours will try to disrupt any viewings, making it harder to sell the home.
Alternatively, you might be a very private person and simply not want anyone in your neighbourhood to know that you are attempting to find a buyer for your property. This might be impossible with certain methods of selling. For example, if you were to attempt selling your home with an estate agent, it would likely require dozens or more viewings, and the constant arrival of visitors at your property could gain the attention of people living nearby.

Possible benefits of selling your flat or house without viewings

Even though viewings have long been a key step in the sale of a home through an estate agent, auctioneer or when the owner attempts to sell on their own, they are not mandatory. There’s nothing by law that requires you to host viewings when trying to sell a property. And there can be a number of potential advantages associated with selling discretely and not having viewings.
Sidestep problem neighbours: If a main reason for why you’re selling is because you’re having disputes with difficult neighbours, you may not want to attract attention to the sale of your home and not having viewings is one way to keep them unaware of your attempt to find a buyer.
Get more genuine offers: There are certain property owners who think that advertising a property for sale can generate viewings and offers from people who have no intention of buying a home and just want to see it, so not having viewings is one way to avoid this situation.
Reduce stress for family: For those homeowners who have children, moving could be incredibly stressful for them, particularly if you’ll have to change schools. If you can sell discretely then you can wait until a sale is completed before breaking this news to them.
Avoid neighbourhood gossip: You might live in an area where you have some nosy neighbours who like to gossip, and having multiple viewings and a large sign outside your home saying “For sale” would almost certainly lead to them talking about the sale of your property.
Conceal financial difficulties: Should you be trying to sell your flat or house in order to raise funds to solve a financial problem, you may not want to draw potential attention to this, and one way to go about selling your home with greater discretion is by not having any viewings.

Do you have to tell buyers why you’re trying to sell without viewings?

An important part of the property selling process is conveyancing, which requires sellers to provide extension details to potential buyers about the house or flat they’re trying to sell, as Wikipedia describes.
For those homeowners who are interested in selling their home without viewings for the primary reason that they have problematic neighbours, you will have to disclose this to someone who is interested in making a serious offer to buy your property. When that happens, a conveyancer will collect relevant legal information about the flat or house, and one crucial document that will need to be filled out is what’s known as a Property Information Form, also called a TA6.
TA6 forms have a lengthy list of questions about your home, and one of these is “Have there been any disputes or complaints regarding this property or a property nearby?”
Your conveyancer should let you know that answering the TA6 form questions honestly is legally necessary. If you hide any information about the property and lie or hedge on your responses to any TA6 form questions, the buyer could sue if you they become the owner of the home and find out about a problem.
Disputes you’ve had with difficult neighbours must therefore be reported on your TA6 form, because potential buyers will want to learn whether they might be facing a reduced standard of living in the event that they purchase the home and the neighbours continue to be an issue.

Four options for selling a home with varying levels of discretion

The four main ways for selling a flat or house are selling to a quick buyer, selling with an estate agent, selling at an auction or selling without any assistance. And as this guide explains, each of these methods has its owns pros, and some have cons, as well as varying levels of discretion.
In order to find which of these approaches might best suit your particular situation, browse the details of the four strategies below and then compare them against your top needs with selling, such as whether you want to have any viewings, what your preferred sale price might be, how long you can wait before getting a genuine offer, and whether you can accept paying any fees. Doing this should help in identifying which selling choice is the right one for you.

Selling to a quick buyer

LDN Properties and other quick buyers are companies with the financial ability to buy homes right away, so they don’t have to wait for weeks or months to get approval for a mortgage to pay for the purchase. This cuts the typical timeline for buying your home down to a handful of weeks, and this includes paying you the sale proceeds and the exchange of contracts.
It makes quick buyers usually the fastest option by far for selling a property, with the added benefit that the honest companies will never charge homeowners and fees for selling.
Another top draw of this method is that you can sell your home without any viewings, because the only visit you will need is from one of the company’s representatives, when they will inspect the inside and outside of your property before they make a final offer for buying it. For those homeowners looking to sell discretely, using a quick buyer can be an excellent choice.
These companies are also renowned for making competitive and rapid offers even for so-called problem properties. By way of example, since 2003 LDN Properties has purchased and considered a long and varied list of homes across the UK that includes properties with flooding damage, houses located next to mobile phone masts, flats with Section 20 notices, properties where the owner cannot find the title deeds or other important documents, houses that have solar panels on the roof, flats with cladding, properties with problem neighbours, and many other situations.

Selling with an estate agent

When you sell your home this way, the estate agent will do the bulk of the work required to find a buyer, starting with putting together a listing that describes the property and includes photographs of it. They will then advertise this listing online, in their office and in local newspapers, and then organise viewings to show potential buyers around the home.
It will all but impossible to avoid viewings when trying to sell this way, because they are considered an essential part of the property selling process with an estate agent. If selling discretely without viewings is your top goal, you should consider other methods.
In addition, you will have to pay an estate agent commission if they’re able to sell your home. This is usually charged as a percentage of the property’s final sale price, and it will add to your costs because it’s taken out of the proceeds right away.
You might also be waiting quite a long time to sell your flat or house, and you should be prepared that it might take more than a full year before you receive a serious offer. For example, selling to a quick home buying company could take only weeks, rather than an entire year, and you’d have the added benefit of not having to pay the quick buyer any commission.

Selling at an auction

Although property auctions can include a requirement to allow viewings, there are many situations where people will place bids on a home this way without having gone on a viewing. That could appeal to owners who are trying to avoid viewings when selling a home.
But beware that this approach to selling could prove quite expensive, because you will have to pay the auctioneer commission in the event that your property finds a buyer. The auctioneer’s fee will be deducted immediately from the final sale proceeds, which will add to your selling expenses.
If you’re looking for the fastest sale you can get, you might also want to consider other options for finding a buyer, because auctioning your home can take a long time. You’ll have to wait for many weeks or even months between when you decide to sell your home this way and when the auction finally happens. And if the property does sell, the winning high bidder will generally have about 28 days to sign all the required documents and otherwise finalise the purchase.
You could ask individual auction houses whether they are open to either reducing the amount of time the buyer has to complete their tasks or lowering the commission that the auctioneer will charge you, or both, because some companies will be willing to negotiate on these issues.

Selling without any assistance

Selling on your own means that you will take on the sole responsibility for organising viewings, as the charity Citizens Advice notes. It will likely be all but impossible to sell a home this way without having viewings, because few if any buyers would be willing to make an offer on a property they’ve never seen in person and been able to inspect in detail.
You’ll also have to handle every other step of the selling process, such as producing and marketing the listing for your home, and fielding offers from serious potential buyers. It’s a major undertaking that will require lots of your time and could end up being very stressful.
It can also be one of the slowest strategies available for selling a property, and you should not be surprised if it takes over a full year before you’re able to secure a buyer.
The benefit of selling without any assistance is that you will not have to pay any commission to an estate agent or auctioneer, which helps to reduce your costs. But the stress and time involved in selling can outweigh this benefit, and any saving you make by not paying commission could be wiped out by the costs involved in advertising your property.
As an alternative, think about selling your home to a quick buyer like LDN Properties. These no-fee companies will never charge you any commission to purchase your home, so you’ll get that benefit but also a much swifter sale, as it should be completed within a few short weeks.

Preparing your property for sale without viewings

When you are getting ready to sell your freehold or leasehold home, you should take a few simple steps that might help to make the property appear more valuable to potential buyers.
With the outside of your home, this means replacing any broken glass, repairing any damaged roof tiles, giving the window ledges a new coat of paint, and weeding and mowing any garden or yard space that you might have. These simple and either low-cost or no-cost measures can greatly help to increase the perceived value of your home from buyers when they look at the photographs of the property’s exterior in your listing, wherever it’s advertised.
Inside your home, you should also remove any clutter that might be making rooms appear smaller and less valuable, and also clean up after any pets you have. If you’re trying to avoid viewings, you wants the listing pictures of all the interior rooms to look as spacious, tidy and inviting as you can, because this could attract a greater amount of interest from buyers.
For larger problems with the flat or house, which can include issues such as extensive dry rot, storm damage, high levels of radon and many other scenarios, you will need to decide whether you have the funds, energy and time available to fix these elements before selling.
Not repairing problems before selling can make some buyers reduce their price offers for your home by the amount of money they expect it would cost them to fix the issue as the owner.
But there are many homeowners who won’t have the time, effort or resources available to do such extensive repair work. If that’s your current situation, you should consider selling to a legitimate quick home buyer like LDN Properties, because these companies making speedy and competitive offers to purchase all types of homes, even those seen as problem properties.
If you are planning on selling the home without any assistance, then you will need to take additional steps to prepare your property for sale beyond simply cleaning it and making it look well-maintained, as detailed by the HomeOwners Alliance.
In particular, you will need to organise and host viewings, because as the previous section of this guide explained, you’ll struggle to find buyers that will be willing to make a serious offer for purchasing your property without having ever toured the interior and exterior.
This means even more work on your part, because you’ll have to answer all the calls or emails from prospective buyers interested in a viewing, then find time to schedule these viewings whilst still doing your day job, and finally leading the tours of your home for these buyers. It’s yet even more effort that will be required which will further add to your overall stress with selling.

Top queries and answers about selling without viewings

Homeowners considering a quick sale often have some questions to ask us, ranging from the essential works required before selling through to selling a house with spray foam insulation. Here are some of the top questions we’re asked about selling a property without viewings discreetly: