Frequently Asked Questions

Selling your home with Oban Estate Agents is a flat £1,500. That single fee covers professional photography, floor plans, your Rightmove listing, a For Sale board, online marketing, offer negotiation and sales progression through to completion. There are no percentages, no extras and no surprise costs at the end. The Home Report (a Scottish requirement, roughly £350–£660) and your solicitor's fees are paid separately, exactly as they would be with any other agent.

No. The £1,500 we quote on our website is the price you pay. Professional photography, floor plans, the For Sale board, online marketing and all negotiation and sales progression are included. We don't add charges for accompanied viewings (we don't do them; you do, because you know your home better than we ever could), Rightmove fees, or contract renewals. The only third-party costs are your Home Report and your solicitor, both of which are external to any estate agent.

Our £1,500 is invoiced on completion of the sale, not upfront. If your home doesn't sell, you don't pay our fee. We stay with you for as long as it takes. There are no time limits, no contract renewals and no extra charges if marketing takes longer than expected. We only get paid when you do.

Most estate agents in Oban charge a percentage of your sale price, typically between 1% and 2% plus VAT. On the average Oban property (around £224,000 in 2026), a 1.5% fee works out to about £3,360, so you'd save roughly £1,860 by selling with us. On a detached home around £345,000, a 1.5% fee would be about £5,174, a saving of roughly £3,674. The higher your property's value, the more you save: our fee stays at £1,500 no matter what your home is worth.

Because the work is largely the same regardless of price. Photographing a £150,000 flat takes the same time as photographing a £350,000 house. The listing, the marketing, the negotiation, the paperwork: all the same. We don't think it's fair to charge sellers of higher-value homes thousands of pounds more for the same service, so we price the service itself, not the property.

Yes. In Scotland a Home Report is a legal requirement before a property can be marketed for sale. It includes a single survey, an energy report and a property questionnaire, and it costs roughly £350–£660 depending on your home. The Home Report is paid by the seller. We work with trusted local surveyors in Argyll and Bute and can arrange your Home Report on your behalf so it's ready before your home goes live on Rightmove.

An "offers over" price is the minimum a seller will consider, set with reference to the Home Report's valuation. Buyers submit offers above that figure, sometimes well above in a competitive market. It's the most common pricing approach in Scotland and lets the open market determine the final price rather than a fixed asking figure. We'll talk you through whether "offers over", "fixed price" or "guide price" is best for your home when we visit for your valuation.

When there's serious interest, the seller's solicitor sets a closing date and invites all interested buyers to submit a sealed, best-and-final offer by a deadline. The seller then chooses which offer to accept. Once accepted, solicitors on both sides exchange formal letters (called "missives") which, once concluded, make the sale legally binding. This system tends to reduce gazumping and gives sellers more certainty than the English system, where deals can fall through right up to exchange of contracts.

When the missives are concluded: the formal exchange of letters between your solicitor and the buyer's solicitor. This usually happens within a few weeks of an offer being accepted, far earlier than the English exchange-of-contracts stage. Once missives are concluded, neither party can pull out without legal consequences. It's one of the things that makes the Scottish system more secure for sellers.

Yes. In Scotland, conveyancing is handled by solicitors rather than licensed conveyancers, and you'll need one to conclude missives and complete the sale. We don't tie you to a particular firm; you're free to use any Scottish solicitor you trust. If you'd like recommendations of local Oban solicitors who handle property sales, we're happy to suggest a few.

You show buyers around your own home, but you don't organise anything else. We source and screen the buyers, book every viewing slot around your schedule, and handle any cancellations or reschedules through our system. You don't chase anyone, you don't juggle diaries; you just open the door at the agreed time. Sellers handle the physical viewing themselves because buyers respond more genuinely to homeowners who can share real stories about the place. It's one of the reasons we can keep our fee at £1,500.

Most sellers are nervous about this at first, then find it surprisingly easy. You already know everything about your home, so you've got nothing to prepare. We provide a short seller's viewing guide with practical tips (what to point out, what to leave the buyer to discover, how to handle the awkward questions), and we make sure you have the buyer's brief before they arrive so you know what they're looking for. If a particular viewing is genuinely impossible for you to attend, we'll work out an alternative, but we don't routinely do accompanied viewings, which is part of how our fee stays at £1,500.

When a buyer requests a viewing through Rightmove, our website or by phoning us, we contact them directly to qualify their interest, then propose times that suit your schedule. Once they confirm, we send the booking to you with all the buyer's details. If anything changes (a cancellation, a reschedule, a no-show) we handle it. You only deal with the buyer at the agreed viewing time itself.

Everything you need to sell your home, professionally and competitively: a full professional photography session, floor plans drawn by a qualified plan provider, your listing on Rightmove (the UK's largest property portal), a traditional For Sale board outside your home, online marketing across our own channels, full offer-handling and negotiation with buyers, and sales progression (managing the chain of solicitors, surveyors and lenders) through to completion day. The £1,500 is all-in.

Yes. Every property we sell is listed on Rightmove, the UK's largest property portal where over 90% of property buyers begin their search. The Rightmove listing is included in the £1,500 fee. We don't charge extra for it as some online agents do.

Yes. Professional photography is included as standard, not a paid extra. A property's listing photos are the single biggest factor in whether buyers click through, so we don't compromise on this. We use natural light, wide angles and careful composition to show your home at its best. We also include a drawn floor plan as standard.

From your valuation to your listing going live on Rightmove typically takes 5–10 working days. The slowest step is the Home Report, which usually takes around a week to arrange and deliver. We can book your Home Report on day one so the photography and floor plan are done in parallel, then we publish to Rightmove as soon as the Home Report is in hand.

Our agreement is straightforward: we work with you until your home is sold, and the £1,500 fee is only payable on completion. There are no long tie-in periods, no automatic renewals and no penalty for withdrawing if your circumstances change. We don't believe in locking sellers into long contracts. If we're not doing a good job, you shouldn't be stuck with us.

Once you accept an offer, we coordinate everything from that point through to handing over the keys. We liaise between your solicitor, the buyer's solicitor, the surveyor (if a separate one is appointed), the lender, and any tradespeople involved. We chase missives, push the timeline along, manage any renegotiation if the survey throws up issues, and keep you informed throughout. This is called "sales progression" and it's included in the £1,500.

We stay with you. There are no time limits, no extra fees and no contract renewals. If interest is slow we'll review the photography, the listing copy and the pricing strategy with you and relaunch where it makes sense. Our reputation in Oban is built on selling homes, not on collecting fees, so getting yours sold is firmly in our interest too.

Use the valuation form on our website (look for "Book free valuation" at the top of any page) and we'll get in touch to arrange a convenient time. The valuation itself is in person, takes about 45 minutes, and there's no obligation to instruct us afterwards. We'll give you an honest market opinion, walk you through how the Scottish selling process works, and explain exactly what your £1,500 buys.

We cover Oban and the surrounding Argyll and Bute area, including Dunbeg, Connel, Taynuilt, Benderloch, Appin, North Connel, Kilninver, Kilmore and Kerrera. If your property is in the wider region and you're not sure whether we cover it, just get in touch; we're happy to confirm.

Yes. Oban Estate Agents is based in Oban and run by people who live in the area. We're not a faceless online operation routing calls to a national call centre. When you ring us, you speak to someone who knows the streets, the schools and the local market, and who's standing only a few miles from your front door.

Yes. We operate to the standards required of estate agents in Scotland, including membership of a Property Redress Scheme (TPO or PRS) which gives you independent recourse if you're ever unhappy with our service. Full regulatory details are available on request and will be listed on this page once memberships are confirmed.