Keeping for sale property on market after accepting an Offer

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.

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.

Sellers and estate agents need to understand what ethics are.

Germanshepherdsmum

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

I completely agree!

I commented on this as we have a couple flats where I live going through sales. As Secretary to our Management Company, I had been contacted by vendor solicitors and had sent all the LPE1 information along with the usual invoice for supplying this,. Several weeks later someone told me they were viewing that flat. I checked with the solicitors and nothing had changed, all was continuing to go its very slow way, but as the vendors had accepted an offer below the marketing price they had asked the E Agent to keep people viewing to see if someone would offer the full price.

Now a second property is again well on its way through the sale, several weeks down the line from when the vendors accepted an offer, but Estate Agent still has it on RightMove.

This maybe legal, but to my mind, it is totally unethical, and I really do wish that someone, somewhere would start to sort out the mess that is conveyancing in England.

Most other countries seem to have far better and fairer systems that work well. It is not as if someone has to invent the wheel.

Then I wouldn’t accept the offer.

Germanshepherdsmum

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

As long as you know the buyer has a mortgage in place, or a cash buyer or has accepted an offer on their own house.
They may offer you the asking price but haven’t got their own house up for sale yet.

M0nica

It depends on the circumstances, there can be big gap between an offer coming in and proper legal work starting, someone can make an offer, but not yet have a mortgage offer, which might prove impossible.

If you have an older house, you may want to keep your options open until the building survey has been completed and you know whether the buyer is going to use it as an excuse for making a much lower offer, that you decline.

You may want the estate agent to do a thorough check on the potential buyers, claims, about their house ebing under offer, how long there chain is, how secure it is.

I can thing of an hundred reasons, you might want to keep your property open to viewings after and offer has been received and accepted, although I do agree once the survey is done, mortage approved, and the chain tested and the solicitors get down to work. Yes, after that, viewings should cease.

I agree with all you say.

Joseann

In France, the seller has to let his house go if the prospective purchaser offers the full price. And there is only a 7 day cooling off period before everything is then signed.

Joseann We sold our French house in (22nd April) this year and there was considerably more than a fortnight between making the offer and , essentially, exchanging contracts. It is also possible to put conditions on the offer and acceptance, as we did this when we bought in France, we intitially offered on a house on condtion a problem was resolved. When this wasn't, we were able to just walk away.

More genetally, I quite agree when an offer is made and accepted and negotiations start, the property should be taken off the market, but here can be so many provisos,, doubtful points, re negotiations on the buyers part that the vendor has to protect themselves and sometimes this means keeping the house on the market (with the person who has offered knowing this.

In France, the seller has to let his house go if the prospective purchaser offers the full price. And there is only a 7 day cooling off period before everything is then signed.

But if you didn't want to shake on it GS, how would you feel if I walked away? I guess it's OK if you know you have a desirable house to sell, but wouldn't you be better going to sealed bids then?

I wouldn’t agree if you had a house to sell and an incomplete chain. We have been exceptionally fortunate in never having been in a chain.

I think if you're the buyer, have had all the checks done, and you offer the full asking price, you should be within your rights to ask for the property to be withdrawn from the market.

Yes GSM you're quite right in that their cash was dependant upon their buyers mortgage offer. I was too trusting in what I was told by the agent in that their exchange was taking place within 48 hours with a one week completion.

The agents (not cheap either) did a good job in marketing my property - no complaints there - but after sales was abysmal. Their "sales progressor" was very wrong in not telling me things had gone wrong, and even when my purchasers found another buyer, I was still fed incorrect information.

She was tardy in keeping me up to date with the conveyancing - in fact when she did eventually contact me, about once a month, I either already knew what she told me, or was one step ahead of her.

When we exchanged last week, my solicitor called me, my seller's agent called me and my purchaser called me. My own agent called me two days after exchange to "congratulate" me on the exchange - but not even a courtesy call to say exchange had taken place.

It's very easy to be less than efficient at your job when your fee is going to be passed on to you before the cash is passed to the client. So you know you're going to get paid even if you're rubbish.

When my daughter was buying her second house, she saw the perfect one but although her first house was on the market and she had accepted an offer the EA had also had an offer for below the asking price from a couple who were cash buyers. We told her to offer the asking price so she would be a cash buyer and that we would lend her sufficient money until she could pay us back. Her offer was accepted but the owners of the house she was buying had their purchase fall through and eventually daughter was having to wait for them to move out! Anything can happen, I think buying and selling houses is one of the most stressful things we do. We have always asked for the house to be taken off the market once our offer has been accepted but have often had problems with people selling lower down the chain. Nothing is certain until contracts have been exchanged and a solicitor should not allow you to do that until he/she is satisfied that all the money is safely in place.

Witznd, I have no faith in most estate agents. They don’t care if you take a hit because it won’t affect their fee much and they just want their hands on it asap. The higher end agents are more expensive but they generally have ethics. We used Savills when we last sold and would do so again - really on the ball and well worth the higher fee.

That was to ferry.

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.

Last time I sold, I turned down a higher offer from a previous viewer, because I’d given my word to my accepted buyer.

She repaid me by demanding a price reduction 24 hours before exchange of contracts.
I’m pleased to say I called her bluff - told her via the agent to sod off - and the sale went ahead.

What possibly irked me even more, was that the EA appeared to be on her side - urging me to accept the reduction! So he was welcome to sod off, too.

I'm moving into a vacant property, my buyers are cash buyers and were about to exchange with their buyers (that was the extent of the chain) and were going to move into rented property on a month by month basis to break the chain.

I didn't even view a property until a sale had been agreed on mine, which was mid November and I found a property quite quickly and sale was agreed.

At the 11th hour (day before Xmas Eve) the buyers at the bottom of the chain pulled out. BUT - nobody told me this until middle of January and only when I phoned agent to confirm my buyers had completed and moved into rented property.

I had thus agreed to purchase a property that wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice, but I'd got the asking price for mine and I was mindful that my buyers were (allegedly) ready to move. Because I was able to tell my seller it would be a cash purchase with quick completion I did manage to negotiate a very good price.

I was very lucky in that my seller (who was selling via Power of Attorney) was understanding - I know she needed to pay care home fees for her Father.

I'm not going to go into the whole story as that would take forever, but what started as what should have been a reasonably easy move turned into a bit of a nightmare. More than 6 months with only 3 in the chain and 2 of those cash buyers.

I agree, karmalady. I wouldn’t accept an offer from a buyer who hadn’t already got a firm buyer for their property, nor would I accept an offer if the chain wasn’t complete.

mine stayed on the market after I had an offer. An offer does not show commitment, employing a solicitor or surveyor does and when that became the situation, then I tentatively withdrew my property from market. Similar if the buyer had not sold their property. The chain would have to be complete for me to withdraw

Germanshepherdsmum

No seller should allow the buyer to mess them around for a year!

No, they should not, but they were old and initially overly considerate. The buyers were 3 generations and simply ran rings round them. They were quite demanding I discovered later - and kept turning up at the property looking for a discount(!) They kept trying to push the older couple into accepting this and that...
Eventually they had had enough and we saw the board the same day it was put back on the market.

My own father sold his business (to retire) to a man and his son. The father had a heart attack...
My soft hearted dad instructed his solicitor to wait. The father's recovery was slower than expected but he felt sorry for them. 🙄 He did know what he was doing but it cost him financially.

Real life can be hard.
We know the theory.
But yes, you are right GSM!

I would only remove my house from the market if the buyer was in a position to proceed with the sale and had funding in place. If someone has a house to sell, it can take a very long time.

I can’t imagine. I used to act for commercial developers. When a sale or purchase was agreed the terms included an agreed timetable for exchange and completion. Failure to comply meant the property was back on the market.