Ok, so who else has been "gazundered"?

uberalles

We effectively gazunder'ed a house seller five years ago, long before the term was commonplace.

I ethically would not mean to do it but our circumstances were that whilst the survey was fine, and the price we were paying was fair, the seller decided to lie to us about what access rights were in place and what land was actually his.

This had a big impact on us buying as it would have meant that our visitors would have had to have parked half a mile away when they came to see us, the house was a barn conversion formally part of a farm, in tight country lanes.

We only discovered this after the survey, 6 weeks into buying and 4 weeks before exchange.
I then made enquiries on how we could overcome the problem, buying further land, and this indicates how much we wanted the house, and told the buyer I wanted the price reduced by this amount or we pull out.
He would not drop the price and we ended up buying elsewhere. He sold 18 months later for the reduced price we offered.

My biggest regret of the whole event is that he made comments to me along the lines of 'I thought you were genuine people'.
Oh the irony, from somebody who lied causing his own problems.

Oh, and by the way, we weren't FTB's.

QTPie

spuds wrote: »

I sympathise too - I cannot see a situation when I would be prepared to gazunder someone. Renegotiation if the survey comes back with lots of problems or if the valuation is lower than expected is different. Also, it's all relative - if they were asking you to drop another 5 or even 10k you may have considered it. To ask for another £40k off is a substantial amount of money.

That is one of the reasons that I think that the buyers "wanted to pull out anyway". Asking for a drop in 40k (baring in mind this is a 5 year old IMMACULATE house and they hadn't had the survey done) is a "do or die" situation. It is a significant amount which is very likely to anger (putting it politely ) many sellers and has a huge chance of getting a knee-jerk reaction... UNLESS the sellers are selling for desperate reasons (which we are not) or the sellers are in a chain (which we were not).

spuds wrote: »

There is no point sellling at a very reduced price if you cannot get the house you want. You could rent, but risk a long wait until the right house comes up or you find a desparate seller who will drop their price.

This is what really concerns me. I felt that we could "JUST ABOUT make things work" on the original offer that we received: it was lower than we wanted, we accepted that we would have to move into rented for a while, but we felt that we SHOULD be able to get back onto the property ladder within about a year. It was a risk, but one that we were willing to take.

When the buyers reduced the offer, by such a significant amount, I just couldn't see it working: the risk was suddenly too great. £40k is not an amount to be sniffed at and is not an extra amount that I can see being able to successfully negotiate off of the type of house we want.

spuds wrote: »

I don't think this is just FTB's though, it is something that any cash or no-chain buyer can do. When house prices are going up and take 6 months to go through, you don't ask for 5% more do you? A deal is a deal, I reckon. Good luck with the next buyers.

Completely agree. Even a chain buyer can do it - since if someone lower down the chain gazunders, there may be little choice but to pass the gazunder up the chain... It is a potential risk to any sale at the moment. BUT any non-chain buyer seems at a higher risk (depending on the circumstance and/or morals of the buyers).

Also agreed, Ii certainly wouldn't raise a price on an agreed house sale in a rising market, but that is me... obviously some people would :rolleyes: (just wish that I didn't have to deal with people like that).

Thank you very much

QT

QTPie

Oh no, that is COMPLETELY understandable: when a seller lies about what is included in the sale, of course you have a right to negotiate!

Completely - and understandable (and very genuine!) - type of gazundering!

Our house was not lied about - absolutely no problem with the sale - it was purely "we nolonger want to pay what we offered" type of gazundering.

Baring in mind we had bent over backwards to achieve their required completion date - and will probably have to pay £150 in solicitors fees incurred by their messing around - AND they gazundered just a month after the original offer, it just stinks...

QT

uberalles wrote: »

We effectively gazunder'ed a house seller five years ago, long before the term was commonplace.

I ethically would not mean to do it but our circumstances were that whilst the survey was fine, and the price we were paying was fair, the seller decided to lie to us about what access rights were in place and what land was actually his.

This had a big impact on us buying as it would have meant that our visitors would have had to have parked half a mile away when they came to see us, the house was a barn conversion formally part of a farm, in tight country lanes.

We only discovered this after the survey, 6 weeks into buying and 4 weeks before exchange.
I then made enquiries on how we could overcome the problem, buying further land, and this indicates how much we wanted the house, and told the buyer I wanted the price reduced by this amount or we pull out.
He would not drop the price and we ended up buying elsewhere. He sold 18 months later for the reduced price we offered.

My biggest regret of the whole event is that he made comments to me along the lines of 'I thought you were genuine people'.
Oh the irony, from somebody who lied causing his own problems.

Oh, and by the way, we weren't FTB's.

QTPie

chedburgh wrote: »

I have to say i didn't see any sellers complaining about the morals or ethics of gazumping while prices increased... This is just the otherside of that coin...

Morals and ethics are just one of those things. Because I have been gazundered, would it be ok for me to intentionally go on to gazunder/gazump someone else?

Just because me car has been intentionally vandalised by someone, is it ok for me to go and take it out on someone elses car?

Morals and ethics are what is supposed to make us civilised human beings (as opposed to just another animal). Unfortunately most human beings need laws to keep them vaguely civil: in Scotland they have them, in England we are left to people to choose whether to apply their own morals and ethics. Some do, others obviously don't...

Ok, I maybe a niaive optimist...

QT

RobertoMoir

tommy75 wrote: »

I'd of snapped their hand off still personally, or tried to get them to 5% . Average house prices have lost 2 and a 1/2 % since December already. I think theres alot of gazundering going on atm because houses prices are still in freefall as the market corrects itself and buyers can get away with it now as gazumping was all the rage in the bubble rise.

Well, as you say, gazumping was all the rage when the shoe was on the other foot - that doesn't make it ok, quite the opposite, just saying that the table seems to be set up to allow these kinds of moves in the game.

chedburgh

QTPie wrote: »

Morals and ethics are just one of those things. Because I have been gazundered, would it be ok for me to intentionally go on to gazunder/gazump someone else?

Just because me car has been intentionally vandalised by someone, is it ok for me to go and take it out on someone elses car?

Morals and ethics are what is supposed to make us civilised human beings (as opposed to just another animal). Unfortunately most human beings need laws to keep them vaguely civil: in Scotland they have them, in England we are left to people to choose whether to apply their own morals and ethics. Some do, others obviously don't...

QT

I agree, and i disagree with both practices totally. I just dont see the point in complaining about one part of the system. Its broken for both parties, yet during price rises everyone seems to think its a boon to gazump, yet now we have falling prices, its ethically wrong to practice the opposite, gazundering. A vicious circle...

I am sure many here who have sold would have accepted another 20k or 30k on top of the selling price had it been offered, them human morals and ethics are often elastic, and bend in the direction that suits the individual.

You are right, we should have a better system, something to make the offers binding to a degree.

tommy75

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Well, as you say, gazumping was all the rage when the shoe was on the other foot - that doesn't make it ok, quite the opposite, just saying that the table seems to be set up to allow these kinds of moves in the game.

On the way up in the property bubble it got crazy with people desperate to get on the ladder before it became impossible and out of financial limits for most. This all fell into EAs hand and the dirty tricks began ie people were constantly gazumping and I think quite a few EA's pretented to have had an offer form an imaginary buyer just to bump up the price further for more commission. When I was buying in 2005 I was going round in block viewings with upto 30 other people at a time in a 2 hour slot and then asked to put my offer on a piece of paper and send it into the EA's office before a certain date and the 'winner' is the highest bidder, how wrong is that?
Sellers will obviously complain when the shoe is on the other foot as it causes stress and anger just like the buyers in the rise. Yes its all wrong. But thats how it works.

SavingSteve

QTPie I appreciate your explaining your situation further, and as your now rightly admit anyone can gazunder, I just think it is down right wrong to suggest it is particulary FTBs that people should be wary of.

It's dog eat dog out therem and ethics seem to have gone out the window.

I'm with you btw, I think gazundering and gazumping are deplorable, but that is the world we live in.

Reason for my offence - I am a FTB, and I would hate for a potential seller to be fearful of selling to us because they had got it in their head that a FTB will more likely gazunder than someone in a chain.

QTPie

tommy75 wrote: »

Sellers will obviously complain when the shoe is on the other foot as it causes stress and anger just like the buyers in the rise. Yes its all wrong. But thats how it works.

It doesn't make it right... there are lots of things we CAN do in this world, or we could rise above it and act in a decent manner... Just because I am a seller, doesn't mean that I would gazump if prices were rising: I wouldn't.

For example, there has been quite a lot of publicity about people mal-treating and takign advantage of Polish immigrant workers recently. I have a Polish cleaner and she has been taken for a ride by numerous people (unscrupulous landlord, friends, employers etc): all taking advantage of her limited (although I think rather good) English and her lack of understand of how things work in the UK. I could easily have taken advantage of her too (underpaying her etc). But instead I pay her the going rate (I actually offered to pay her more than she asked for), gave her a Christmas bonus, Christmas & birthday presents and a lot of patience and understanding (listening to her troubles, giving her references etc).

Ok, maybe I am a complete fool: I could get away with paying less, being quite cold and distant and certainlynot bother with gifts/bonuses/references... but that is not the way I work: I think that if you treat others with honesty, respect and consideration, then hopefully you should get something back (hopefully a loyal, hardworking cleaner in this case...).

We dictate the world we live in: we can either behave like selfish animals or we can try to rise above it and act with this and morals and try to make this world a better place. Personally I wish that the world could be split into two different places: so people could live and deal with like-minded people.

Ok, incredibly niaive, maybe, but... :cool:

QT

RobertoMoir

tommy75 wrote: »

Sellers will obviously complain when the shoe is on the other foot as it causes stress and anger just like the buyers in the rise. Yes its all wrong. But thats how it works.

Oh absolutely, that's how it works. That's what I was saying.

We could, of course, try to change the way it works to close these 'loopholes' but then people would just find other ways to gear the system. Essentially any process like this assumes that the participants are fundamentally honest at some level and therefore is always vulnerable to people who are not.