Gazumped & Gazundered

I watch those daytime property programmes and in one county - having an offer accepted is a legally binding document for both parties with hefty compensation if either party pulls out ( can't remember if it was 10 or 20% of the offer)

This seems such a sensible way of doing things

one country

It is extremely frustrating. When I divorced and was looking for a place..The first house I put in an offer which was accepted; I then was out of the country in Africa on a charity project. I gave them contact details of how I was to be contacted, the hotel, NGO landline etc. My mobile also worked remarkable well too! When I got back I was told that the house was no longer available for me to buy as a higher offer had been accepted. If an agent acting for a company for relocation purposes or bank/building society on repossession then in these circumstances can accept a higher offer. I set out to look again. Then I was contacted by the estate agent selling the first house I put an offer in and was told it was on the market again as the sale had fallen through. I asked how much over my price had they put - wait for it! It was £50 over my price!! I was absolutely livid and said that although I did want the property there was no way I was going to put myself in that position again where I could legitimately be gazumped. Outrageous. Yes please tell these people to go away or behave themselves.

Having purchased and sold,now living in my present property, five properties in the past thirty years I feel I know many tricks of the trade.
How important is it you buy that particular house you are interested in.Is it the house or the location.?You need to obtain the best price for the house you are selling.So sell and think about renting once you have sold at what YOU want for your property and on having had a trusting and honest figure for its value.
Then put your worldly goods in storage
If that house you want sixty miles away is still available great but if it is based on the location there may be more around there. Don't rush and lose money Even rent 60 miles away until you get what you want .Having sold it is then your, the ' buyers' market.Good luck.

Having followed DH's job around the country I have experienced many moves and learned a lot about human nature!

With one house which needed a lot of work we specified leaving the carpets because the floors were concrete and we wanted the warmth while we lived in the house and did the work. She left the carpets and took the underlay!

Good things do happen:

One vendor moved into a hotel for a week just to accommodate our move during school holidays.

It took 33 hours between viewing and contract exchange with the last house we sold.

DS sold his house (originally small 2 bed bachelor house) and he and DiL moved in with us in May. Yes their buyer tried it on at the last minute but they stood firm. Where they want to live good properties go on the market, agent arranges block bookings and then it is last and final offers by Wednesday. This always means guessing how much over the asking price will secure the house. Offer not high enough on first one. Second one agreed and then didn't find their own house for 4 months. Third one accepted offer even though it was not the highest because she remembered DS from when he was 10 (he is now 34) when we lived in the area and went to the same church. She is a widow and is moving to an apartment. She is leaving lots of things for them and not charging for most of them is being really kind and helpful. There are really nice people around. Also the vendors of house 2 sent a lovely text message when the agent told them DS & DiL were no longer buying their house.

Frustrating when dealing with difficult people but lovely when everyone cooperates.

When we sold our family home to downsize, we were selling to a young family who had a house to sell. We were prepared to wait as we had already bought our downsizer. The estate agents contacted us to say they had another buyer offering more - they were astounded when we told them we didn't do gazumping.

I would also never again agree to having a 'Sale Agreed' sign slapped on the for sale board the minute an offer is accepted on my house - I would sell to the first-comers but would still keep the property on the market.

Bravo Leeds - I take my hat to you

When DD1 and DH bought their first flat near London- thea offered the asking price as it was just what they wanted and they wanted to move out of their rental flat asap. The vendors accepted - and then 1 month later said that they would be soooooo grateful if they were prepared to wait till Christmas as kids were just about to start school again after Summer hols and they didn't want to move them half-way through term. The agreed, very reluctantly as they hated the flat the were renting- it was really inconvenient and of course would cost them the rent in the waiting months. And low and behold, after all that- the vendors came back 2 months laters and said prices had gone up in the meantime, and they wanted another 15 grand!
Unbelievable- DD1 told them to ******************** and they were back to square 1. Fortunately next purchase went smoothly and they didn't regret it, but we were all stunned by the cheek and dishonesty, after they had bent over backwards to help. Some people - and the agents even worse!!!

I find it all terribly depressing and frustrating. We have two properties to sell - our family home which we've been in for 30+ years and our small apartment an hour away. They've been up for sale for 6 months and although there have been many viewings on the apartment we've only had 2 on the house - our neighbours put theirs up the same time and sold it within a week - completely different properties and a vast price difference hence their quick sale. During this time we have scoured the local area looking for somewhere we want to live with no luck and although we've viewed many new builds we've never been to an occupied property as it doesn't seem right to find something before selling. Yesterday we finally accepted an offer on the apartment but have now decided that we are going to take the house off the market and spend the money we would have had to reduce it by to have work done on it - this will be the 3rd time in 30 years we've done it! Until we see the buyer's signed contract I won't believe that the other sale is happening - we were told they were cash buyers too but now find they are in fact selling another property and presumably need this to complete before they can do the same. To make matters worse they actually live in Asia so it will be a very slow process! So many horror stories on here - I think we may have made the right decision! Good luck with your sale Trueblue I hope it goes through in the end without any more hitches!

The buying / selling process here in France is more secure than the English one. Once a sale is agreed, the buyer signs an initial contract and has to pay a minimum of 5% of the purchase price. If he pulls out, the seller gets his deposit, and if the seller pulls out they have to pay the deposit amount to the buyer. It is very rare for anyone to pull out of a sale!

In NL you have a short time to change your mind and after that you have to prove that you really couldn't raise the finance or you have to proceed.

When my daughter and her family wanted to move I suggested they sold first and moved in with me whilst looking for another property. She, her husband, two sons and their cat were with me for a few months but it enabled them to get what they wanted and it all went through smoothly. I realise that it was fortunate I had the space to accommodate them, which not all parents could do.

Our agent says i 30 years in the business, he has never known anything like it. We have bought and sold many properties, and neither have we.

I can't believe that!
We dropped our offer by 30k as a result of our survey, that's the whole point of paying for the survey - to take your surveyors advice!
It wasn't a "last minute ploy", we used the money to remedy what our surveyor told us needed doing (which turned out to be even more extensive than he thought actually, even if the buyers initially said that they didn't believe there was anything wrong and the place was good to go)

In countries where sale aggreed is more of a contract, surveying is done prior to the offer, so effectively the same thing happens - buyer interested, has a survey, potentially offers less as a result - THEN there's the offer contract…

but its essentially the exact same process and people do listen to their surveyors, why wouldn't they?

the people I brought from hid all the defects including the knotweed..Ive had a nightmare and lost £££'s off value of the place.

Well, here's a story to gladden the heart of all of us who have been through this nightmare:

A colleague was just through the other side of a difficult divorce ( her husband had left her for another woman) and she was in the family home, keeping it maintained and looked after, dealing with prospective buyers etc. Her Ex was forever bothering her about his share of the house.

Along came a buyer, all going well, he knew she was desperate to sell, knew her position thanks to indiscreet estate agent. The day before exchange, she came in in tears, the buyer had dropped his offer by £30K and her husband was insisting that she had to take the brunt of the loss. She gritted her teeth and went along with the sale, at the reduced price, moved out and moved on. About 2 years later, imagine my delight when I saw on my way to work a great big sign from a well known mass builder announcing a development about to be built, all around and behind this house........talk about karma

We've had similar experiences in England too - such a pity that the English process is not as straightforward as that in Scotland.

Reading through all of your posts here, it seems that the English way is to encourage gazumping - if not directly, but by dragging out the process to the Estate Agent or Lawyer's benefit.

It seems the Scots, Dutch and French have a more rational approach.

We are in the process of trying to sell and despite promising ourselves not to, found a house we want to buy. BUT there is no movement on our house, few viewing and little interest. I've done my homework, the price is good, the house has been refreshed neutrally top to bottom and we're keen to move.

But it's not going to happen we see now.

But we're going to sit tight and just see what happens, then we'll rent if we have to before buying again.

But it is soul destroying.

Having sold abroad, the reality/practicalities are exactly the same when you have surveys before offers, and offers are contracts.

Because once someone is interested enough to survey you need to get a wiggle on and get your forward chain sorted or they won't offer.. and then they might offer lower than you need for a chain you're now already in (and tied to) so in practical terms the exact same things happen, only it can be a bit worse because its harder then to get out of your forward chain.

Also where offers are contracts it can DRAG ON a lot longer than an English sale because the chain all has to complete and nobody pulls out and finds an alternative if their part of the chain is dragging on.

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

I do find compaired to abroad that at least in England you either complete or it falls through in a relatively short period of time (even with a chain) so you can crack on with plan B, abroad it can take forever to complete

We bought and sold a house in Sept last year, I had to do so much research into estate agents tricks, ended up changing estate agents every 3 months but it worked and we sold more quickly than others have in our area. The process was so stressful. With last minute offer changes feel for you.

Had this tried on us, decided to walk away from it all. To cut a long story short the original agent came back asking for original accepted price but we decided to leave it alone. PHow pleased we are, as 800 houses have been built around that 'desirable property with country views'. It's such a hard, harsh and cruel market when buying and selling property.

Last year, when we put our house on the market, the first buyer couldn't get a mortgage due to his personal circumstance. He strung us along for 2 months, post survey, with silly questions about the neighbours properties etc. we should have sussed something was wrong, when he suddenly changed his solicitor! We had had enough just before Christmas and dumped him!
We were just about to remove our house from the market and enjoy Christmas, when a new buyer offered. She completed the purchase, but did have a couple of attempts at getting the price lowered. We were very straight from the start and said no reductions, or the whole deal is off.

Should be How not PHow!! Sorry.

Notanan it is the same in England, the whole chain has to complete on the same day unless there is someone with the cash in the chain.

I would like to know why it takes so long these days when all parties are raring to go? Estate agent and solicitors have told DS & DiL 3 months. When it all had to be done by post it was usually quicker than that. The vendor is ready to go asap, DS & DiL are ready so why does it take so long?