Already abroad · expats · non-resident landlords · overseas executors
Sell the UK house without booking a flight.
The house is here; you’re eleven time zones away — and every option you’ve looked at seems to assume you’ll pop back. You won’t need to. Every step of a sale to us runs remotely: one survey visit at our end, certified paperwork at yours, and a completion date in the contract either way.
The sale that runs while you sleep
Tap each number. Your side of the world on top, the house’s side underneath — and what actually crosses between them.
1The distance problem, named
An empty UK house from abroad is a standing worry: unoccupied insurance that gets harder to buy the longer it sits, council tax, a boiler nobody hears fail. And an open-market sale adds the worst part — a chain that can collapse at 4am your time, with the fix being a flight. Distance doesn’t make selling harder; it makes uncertainty harder.
2Your paperwork, done where you are
Identity checks use certified copies; signatures are witnessed where you live — a notary or a UK consulate commonly does it — and if you’d rather not manage even that, a power of attorney lets someone you trust in the UK sign for you. Your solicitor sets which route; none of them involves an airport. General information, not legal advice — but it’s how these sales are done every week.
3The UK side runs without you
Sophie handles everything by phone and email at hours you choose; our survey visit happens once, arranged with whoever holds a key; the legal work runs solicitor-to-solicitor. No viewings to host from another hemisphere, no board outside, no staging an empty house. You monitor a process — you don’t administer one.
4The two clocks that reward a known date
Completion starts a 60-day clock to report the sale to HMRC as a non-resident — even with nothing to pay. And if the money’s changing currency, a forex rate can only be locked against a date you actually know. A completion date fixed in a contract serves both clocks; a chain serves neither.
Sources: gov.uk, CGT for non-residents (60-day reporting) · gov.uk, Non-Resident Landlord Scheme. General information, not tax or legal advice. Last reviewed August 2026.
“Just keep renting it out.” From abroad, taken seriously.
If it’s let, earning and well-managed, keeping it can be right — that’s an investment call. But be honest about what you’re signed up for: the Non-Resident Landlord Scheme deducts basic-rate tax from your rent unless HMRC approves you to receive it gross, every repair happens by phone from another time zone, and the EPC and compliance rules keep tightening whether you’re awake or not. Our relocating page covers the decision before you leave; this page is for the version where you’ve already left and the house has become a job you do at midnight. If that’s where you are: tenanted or empty, we buy it as it stands.
Your three honest routes
All workable from abroad — with different amounts of it on your plate.
A UK agent, managed remotely
Works well when the house is lender-clean, someone you trust holds a key, and you have months of patience for the time difference. The most money, when the chain holds.
Every viewing, price talk and wobble reaches you at the wrong hour — and if the chain collapses, the “fix” conversations happen at 4am your time, or not at all.
Auction — the binding hammer travels well
A traditional auction’s certainty-after-the-hammer suits remote sellers: once it falls, the sale is binding without you in the room. For unusual stock it can beat any private offer.
Entry fee and legal pack are spent before certainty exists, the guide is not a promise, and an unsold lot restarts the clock — publicly. How auctions actually work covers the whole machine.
Want to try auction first? Ask us for an introduction
We keep a short list of traditional auction houses we rate — no modern-method buyer-fee traps. They pay us a small introduction fee if you sell with them, and we’d rather tell you that than pretend the recommendation is free. If they beat our offer, take theirs. New to auctions? See how auctions actually work. Say “auction introduction” when Sophie calls, or ask on 0191 249 3969.
Sell to us — the fully remote version
A figure in writing with the reasoning attached, emailed to wherever you are; certified paperwork at your end, one survey visit at ours; completion on a date in the contract, with £500 a day on us if we miss it.
The price sits on the public ladder — 65–82% of market value by the date you choose. Weigh it against the empty-house meter, the time-zone tax on every complication, and the flight you’d rather not book.
The certain route: a sale you check in on over coffee, not one you run at midnight — and a date both HMRC’s 60-day clock and a currency lock can be planned around.
The questions overseas sellers ask
Can I really sell without flying back?
What’s the 60-day rule?
How do time zones work with your 8am–8pm line?
What happens to the empty house until completion?
Who actually buys it?
Start from wherever you are
Any hour, any time zone. A figure in writing with the reasoning attached — forward it to your solicitor, your family or your accountant before you decide anything.
Or call us: +44 191 249 3969 · 8am–8pm UK time, seven days