Gazumping

A sale by binding tender is different in that the offer accepted is legally binding, though it might have been made subject to a specified condition. That’s rarely used for residential sales in England but not uncommon in sales of development land, the buyer having been the opportunity to undertake all necessary searches and generally do their homework before submitting a bid. I have been involved in a lot of those.

I put my mother's house up for Sale by Tender and got a good offer. Two days later Liz Truss set the cat amongst the pigeons. The lady who had made the offer said she would stand by her word but after mucking me around for months, then came back with a much reduced offer. It has been a nightmare.

We sold a couple of years ago when the housing market was in a frenzy. House went online on Wednesday, viewings on Friday ( with 4 offers) and final increased offers on Saturday. End of.

I believe in Karma. Both our last houses we made offers significantly lower than offers already made (but not accepted) - because the sellers wanted to sell to us.

We will probably sell at a lower price if we can find new owners who will respect it and all the wildflife and wild flowers- than to flashy people who will want to tear the lot up and turn it into a glass and steel architectural grand design.

Yes do the right thing, it obviously doesn’t sit right with you or you wouldn’t have posted. Also it’s unlikely to be a huge amount more, so it’s not a life changing amount to do what you are uncertain about …

If you wait you could piss off both buyers and have no sale, the market is possibly crashing. I'd find out which buyer is most proceedable and committed. If the first buyer discovers you turned down a better offer to stick with them they are likely to be very positive, which is worth bearing in mind. Any offer can be withdrawn or reduced at any time up to exchange of contracts and people often secure a property and take it to the wire before reducing the offer again last minute.

bytheway

You’ll all be pleased to hear that, having discussed it further with OH and some trusted friends, we have decided we will stand by the first offer.

Agent informed and, fingers crossed, hopefully all will proceed smoothly.

Thank you all for your input.

Sounds like the right thing to do, I'm not sure I'd want to deal with your second buyer who felt it was OK to break your word on the first acceptance.
Best of luck!

SueDonim

Are you in England? In Scotland in that situation a ‘closing date’ would be set, and everyone would make their best offer by that date. The seller can accept any offer, it needn’t be the highest eg someone might be a cash buyer.

Is there a method of doing that in the English system?

It happens a lot round here. If several people are interested the Estate Agents asks for each party's "Best and Final" offer. The seller is given all the details: offer level, cash or mortgage, the buyer's own sale position and so on so that the seller can make a sensible decision based on all the information.
We were involved in this situation when buying for my daughter and found that the EA was not wholly impartial, recommending someone as a "cash buyer" when they had not, in fact, exchanged on the sale of their own property. The buyer accepted their offer but it subsequently fell through when the seller realised that they could not exchange contracts as their situation was not as stated.
The seller came back to us and we exchanged on the sale with them.
Sometimes the EA is keen for you to accept a particular buyer because they are also acting for them on their own sale. Or sometimes they ask for "Best and Final" offers simply in an attempt to push up the price even if there is no real competition.

Grammaretto In Scotland you can pull out at last minute but whoever makes that decision may be liable for any expenses incurred by the other party up to that point eg legal costs.

Years ago when Gazumping was rife we lost 5 houses - it was so awful I refused to speak to any estate agents. We were renting so not in a chain. I prefer the Scottish system.

Seems that your house was put up for sale at a price lower than the agent recommended and the agent was right, hence all the early interest and good offers. Fingers crossed that it all goes well.

well done.. you can live now with knowing you were honourable

Not quite the same but we set our heart on a house and told the agent we would travel (100 miles) to see it the next day. We were cash buyers and relocating. The next morning the agent rang after we had travelled to say the vendor accepted an offer the night before. The agent must have known but still let us travel. Very upset about it but we found another house and are v happy here. Estate agents are a law unto themselves.

There was a lot of heat about this 20 years ago and I think there was also gazundering.

Agree with the others- we were gazumped, and it is truly horrible. We always said we would never do that to anyone.

This happened to us when we returned from the Netherlands and sold our London house. We stuck with the first offer that we had accepted. We felt it was morally right. Maybe we could have got much more but it seemed enough for us at the time.

...make sure your estate agent does a full resileince cheque,in ordr to make sure the sale doesn't fall over later

After our offer was accepted last week, in order to secure the property and it be taken off the market I had to provide documentation to show the funds are available plus voter ID and proof of address.

I found that after I had paid a deposit on my new flat the agent was still allowing viewings. This resulted in a man agreeing to buy the flat to find a few weeks later that it had been sold. He was very disappointed and I felt this was not entirely legal as my solicitor was involved in the transaction.

Both we and DS have had houses we were interested go to tender, but we were told, either explicitly before the viewing, or warned that it might happen during a viewing. Doing it retrospectively after an offer has been made and accepted, I would consider porr practice.

like others, in your place, I would stay with the first offerors, but make sure your estate agent does a full resileince cheque,in ordr to make sure the sale doesn't fall over later

When we have accepted an offer we take the house off the market.

Yes we would do the same, no way would we entertain and accept a second offer if we had accepted on a first, just couldn’t do it

Our inlaws' house went up for sale on the Monday - even before it had been listed online, we had a viewing booked. She made an offer that day, it was accepted and so it was 'sold subject to the conclusion of missives'. All things being well, the new owner should be moving in next month - but we'll not be counting our chickens until everything is signed and sealed!

My MiL house has sold within a fortnight. It's Scotland but the offer was sufficiently over the upset price to be perfectly acceptable.
Things can still go wrong but once contracts are exchanged, there's no going back

My daughter recently bought a house in Scotland, which went to a closing date.
The owner sold the house to my DD and her DH, despite their offer not being the highest one.
Who knows why, but they were very fortunate, because houses for sale are rare here.

We’re in the north east, Gateshead.
The agent advised us to put the house up for more than we thought it was worth (just to see what interest there might be at a higher price) so, tbh, we settled a figure lower than first advised as we felt we would get more footfall (which we did)

I know some people are swayed by agents who suggest higher prices than others and then they wait forever to sell, often having to eventually reduce the price which was something we didn’t want.