Keeping for sale property on market after accepting an Offer

NotSpaghetti

The house we live in now was taken off the market after the previous offer was accepted and the purchasers messed the vendor around for just over a year. By then they had lost the other house they wanted to buy.

When we came along the day they put it back on the market it was all very quick as we had everything in place.

Something similar happened when we were buying for my daughter. We made a cash offer but the estate agent recommended another buyer's cash offer so we accepted that we'd lost it. However it was close to where we live and I mentioned to the seller that we were still interested if something went wrong.
Sure enough the supposed "cash" offer which had been accepted was not cash at all but dependent on a sale although it took three months to discover this. Since the seller had to move by a given date to get a school place we were able to step in and enable her to move and to get the property that my daughter wanted.

If another contract is sent out the seller’s solicitor is obliged, under professional rules, to tell the buyer’s solicitor immediately, so a buyer should never be unaware that they are in a contract race. Perhaps the seller was using a shoddy conveyancing outfit.

Germanshepherdsmum

Anyone making an offer on a property should insist that it’s immediately taken off the market if the offer is accepted.

We always do this since ending up in a contract race, unbeknown to ourselves, and wasting our solicitors fees.

I believe offers in Scotland are usually hedged with a variety of conditions. That isn’t so in England and Wales.

In Scotland once your solicitor has accepted an offer then there is a legal contract in place and if the seller decides to accept a higher bid the seller can be held liable for the original buyers costs or at least that’s what happened to us. We put in an offer which the seller accepted, but then came back and said they had higher offer and did we want to match it, we declined, but our solicitor pursued the to recover our legal costs, so the seller actually lost in the end.

This happened to me I paid solicitor and survey fees then yhey changed their mind

I would expect any house purchase I was making to be withdrawn from the market as soon as the legal work started or survey booked. I’d expect, as a buyer to show intent. I would feel duty bound to proceed as a seller unless I was being mucked around. We are intending getting an electrical survey and the boiler serviced before we put ours on the market and to make critical information available where we can from the get go so there are no nasty surprises and people know what they are letting themselves in for when they make their offer. They will be informed from the start that we will not reduce the price once they have made their offer.

Germanshepherdsmum

But one wasn’t a cash buyer - they had a dependent sale which fell through. And perhaps the buyers who pulled out were reliant on a mortgage. I don’t call anyone a cash buyer unless they have the money in the bank - and it’s up to the estate agent to establish proof of available funds.

Estate agents definition of a cash buyer can be very blurred. We sold our house in July last year and had three “cash buyer” offers. We had to decide which offer to accept and when it came to it two weren’t technically cash buyers (although they had nothing to sell). We chose the couple that actually had money in the bank. We purposely didn’t start looking for a house until we completed and only now hoping to exchange today on a house. The last ten months have given us time to look around and find exactly what we want without having the stress of finding a house within any timeframe.

I would only accept an offer from a proceedable buyer and would only take the house off the market when I knew they were actually booking surveys etc and had made some degree of committment. People put low offers on multiple properties these days and wait to see what pans out, also unethical of they expect you to take the place off the market. When I'm buying, I make a statement about what I expect, in writing, plus evidence of funds and ask them to take the house off the market etc and most agents do want full evidence of funds etc You'll always get messed about and have discussions about the price, it's the nature of the game. I speak as one who had some cow of a seller let me actually carry out a survey after she had exchanged contracts with someone else! I have also withdrawn from a purchase after a poor survey and been offered a 10k price reduction, which I didn't accept.

I would be very wary of taking a house off the market as soon as an offer is made. We did that with our Dad's bungalow (SSTC) but when the estate agent rang 2 days after to request buyer's ID to commence the process, he denied all knowledge! The estate agent made the point that if SSTC happens a couple of times and then removed, potential buyers will wonder if there is a problem. Better to put under offer until said offer is further along the line.

I have moved many times both here and overseas and the estate agents can be the best and the worst! Once we were moving areas and had visited estate agents in the new area and told them what we wanted and asked for details to be sent to us. I went to have a general look round and the agent had a house in the window fulfilling all our requirements but we had not been sent the details. I went in, asked if they had my details and checked them and then asked why this house details had not been sent to us and they said that as we were not selling through them they didnt put us at the top of the list!! But I have also been into estate agents and if the house is quoting sale agreed, simply asked them to let me know if the sale does not go through for any reason, which I think is acceptable. I did buy one house like this as the buyer withdrew for health reasons and the estate agent contacted us , and we were able to go ahead and buy it , which was good news for the seller in this instance. But I would not dream of trying to gazump or but in on a sale pending

So what other taxes should be raised to fill the large black hole abolition of stamp duty would leave? It’s a tax you only pay if you buy a property priced above £250k (ignoring stamp duty on share transfers, would you like that abolished too?).

Although it is no guarantee that the sale will go through, in France buyers/sellers have to sign a promise to buy/sell with a down payment of a deposit. There are ways to wiggle out of this without losing money but it does make people think before rushing in.

I agree the whole buying and selling process needs a complete overhaul. Stamp duty is a stealth tax and should be abolished.

There is bad practice on both sides, buyers pulling out chains collapsing, sellers changing their minds, property is not sold or bought until you sign the contract.

If you don’t want the hassle put it up for auction, you get a decision on the day, you can put a reserve on and try again if it doesn’t make enough first time.

Agree with Monica re keeping property on the market. From a sellers point of view it makes sense eg if person who has made offer is not yet in a position to proceed. Having said that, we have always insisted that when our offer has been accepted the property is taken off the market. Depends whether you're a seller or buyer.

Oopsadaisy1

MzOops is a cash buyer, she looked at a house, loved it, took the children to see it, made an offer which was accepted, instructed her Solicitor.
A week later she was told that another higher offer had been accepted.
The agent had told her that the property was taken off of the market, but as another couple ( from London) had already made an appointment for the following weekend the Agent had shown them round. If she wanted to raise her offer then he would speak to them and see if they would raise theirs and so it would presumably go on.

She was very upset as she had trusted the home owners, IMO there was no excuse for their behaviour.

except that the house seems to have been worth more than the offer made by your relative?

its always been a thing. Chains collapse, people pull out for many reasons and there are cheeky buyers who will make an offer, get it removed from sale and them negotiate reductions and so on. Its usual to mark such properties as under offer. I get gazumping but I think it would be unreasonable to the seller to insist on this unless the sale became binding at acceptance of offer...and if this did happen, in a fast moving market I could see sellers refusing to accept offers immediately the offer is made.

After trying to sell my house for nearly a year I now understand why sellers do this.I have experienced two buyers whose offers I accepted only to have them pull out after as much as 3 months,I have had my house off the market and therefore missed possible sales.Many buyers use making an offer as a sort of booking system until they find something else.I have also had a buyer who has kept me waiting for 5 months and then demanded a £30,000 price drop a week before exchanging.I have had to give in to this to keep the property I want to buy.He is supposed to be paying the deposit today so all my fingers are crossed.
There two sides to this,I have tried to behave ethically only to find buyers have not extended this courtesy to me as a vendor.

Don't think that happens in Scotland.

On Rightmove I have noticed they have two descriptions 'under offer' and 'sold subject to contract'.

DD was trying to buy a house recently, and made an offer and the offer was accepted, but legal proceedings stalled very early because, it turned out there was a tenant in the house and the seller refused to disclose what the arrangements were for the tenant to vacate the property (it was being sold with vacant possession). In the end DD pulled out. Throughout that time Rightmove simply described her house as being 'under offer'. It was never described as 'sold subject to contract'

I'm in the North East and a local popular estate agent will always have marked on various properties "This property is now sale agreed and there are to be no further viewings". I'd presume this is part of their terms and eminently sensible!

Having bought and sold so many properties we have a saying “buyers are liars”.
We have been let down and lied to so many times, the agents are not always good at screening buyers or checking their financials.
We have accepted offers but allowed viewings to continue to create a reserve list, we have always honoured the original offer as I feel gazumping is disgraceful, we have lost a couple of houses due to this.

We spent our last 10 years before retirement in England. We put our house on the market in the February, were asked if we would be able to move at 2 weeks notice which we agreed, we finally moved end of September. Fortunately we were going back to Scotland and had a place to live but I dread to think what could have happened if we were staying in England, The Scottish system is a bit more straightforward and has either a closing date fixed and then under offer sign as soon as the offer is accepted. Issues do arise as nothing is perfect, but not very often.

Cossy

I think we should adopt the Scottish system. I lost two buyers who “just changed their minds” I’d taken the house off the market both times.

In Scotland the deal isn't complete until the written contract is signed (all searches completed, terms agreed etc - can take weeks/months) either party can pull out up til then.