How does the process of Scale Down work?

There are a few different instances of Scale Down occurring. Scale Down only occurs in relation to orders to buy i.e. “Bid”. Increases in your available funds will also cause previously scaled down bids to scale back up to the point you originally set the bid at (i.e. the “high water mark” of the bid). The process is explained in the scenarios outlined below:

Scenario 1: Bidding across multiple properties. Let’s say you place 54 different bids of £1000 across 54 different properties, giving you £54,000 worth of bids. When the first order is successful, the rest of your orders will be scaled down accordingly until cancelled or until you top up your available funds

Example: Assume you have available funds of £10,000 and you place 54 bids of £1000. If one of those £1000 bids matches all other bids will remain in place as resting bids of £1000 and your available funds will reduce to £9000. If you then match another £8500 of successful bids (reducing your available funds to £500) then all remaining bids will scale back to £500 so as to match your available funds. Bids will continue to match until your available funds reach a point where there is not enough to secure 1 share in a given property you are bidding for. At that point bids relating to that property will cancel.

Note: If you still have resting bids and you increase your available funds (by making a deposit, selling shares, receiving dividends or promotional funds) then your resting bids will scale back up to the high water mark of a given bid i.e. in the example given if your bids had scaled back to £500 to match available funds and you then deposited a further £1000 into your account then those bids would scale back up to £1000 and continue to match until the bids are fulfilled or your new available funds (in this case £1500) were depleted.

Scenario 2: If you bid to buy on one property, and you place two or more bids on said property for more than your available funds, the lower priced bid (least competitive) will be scaled down to equal your available funds.

Example: Assume you have available funds of £600 and you place a bid of £500 at a price of £1.00 on a property AND another bid of £500 at £0.99 on the same property. The lower priced (least competitive) bid of £0.99 will be scaled back to £100 worth of bids at £0.99p. It will then remain until cancelled or scaled back up (to its £500 high water mark) in the event that your available funds increase.

Scenario 3: Reducing your available balance by any means (purchase on primary/Resale, withdrawal or transactions through bids) will potentially trigger Scale Down of any bids that are above your available funds. This will occur on single property or multiple property bids. As outlined above if your available funds increase then any bids you have made will scale back up to the high water mark of the given bid.

Example: Assume you have available funds of £1000 and you place 10 bids of £1000 across multiple properties. You then invest £500 in a new listing which reduces your available funds to £500 - this triggers scale down of all your bids to £500. You then deposit £500 and all your bids scale back up to £1000.