Gazumped on a reposession house

pampam

Can I Do anything??
9 days ago I put in a cash offer for a house that had been reposessed. The offer was accepted on the condition that I completed the sale within 2 weeks.
My solicitor was very good and we were due to complete on Tuesday 10th Feb.
I recieved a phone call last night from the estate agent saying that they had had a much higher offer and the lenders had decided to accept it.
Can they do this??
Not only have I got to pay solicitors fees for work done so far, but I have withdrawn my savings from some decent fixed interest rate accounts. Obviously when I reinvest this money I will be going in at a much lower rate.
(The house was not for me it was for my granddaughter so I will be reinvesting the money)
Is there anything I can do?
Any advice really appreciated.
Thanks
Pam

poppysarah

Put in some low offers on houses that are not repos. I can see that a repo purchase is very stressful - and if you've lost your high interest rate you may as well go ahead with a purchase as planned - just get a better deal somewhere else.

mbga9pgf

HAve you thought the EA may be messing you round? I would be tempted to walk away on the Off chance that they were trying to blag an increase in sale price. If they come back, knock a further 5K off for their cheek.

Dont worry, plenty more repos to come....

GDB2222

Maybe wait a year or two, and buy when prices generally are 15-25% lower? That will dwarf any loss of interest. Lucky escape if you ask me.

Enfieldian

Repos are normally advertised until exchange of contracts.

Once a sale is agreed a "7 day" or public notice may also appear in the local paper stating the agreed price and inviting higher offers.

It is all to do with the BS duty of care, to get the best price for the defaulting client.

It sounds like your offer was not the best price!

If you still want it, canyou increase your offer?

Simple as that really.

milkybars

mbga9pgf wrote: »

HAve you thought the EA may be messing you round? I would be tempted to walk away on the Off chance that they were trying to blag an increase in sale price. If they come back, knock a further 5K off for their cheek.

Dont worry, plenty more repos to come....

Exactly what I was thinking. But I didn't think sellers/EAs could do this for repos?

QTPie

Just the other side of the coin - we were "gazundered" three weeks ago.

That was a month after the house had gone under offer and 3 weeks before completion: yes, it was their condition of sale that we were supposed to complete by today! Today is also my birthday - happy birthday :rolleyes:

We are also stuck with solicitors fees for the sale that sold through - sort of adds insult to injury :rolleyes:

Am sorry that you had to go through it - both gazumping and gazundering are plain wrong and a real downside of the English property selling system.

I hope that you find something else that really works for you

QT

pampam

Thanks for all your replies.
I feel better just knowing I am not on my own.
Do you think house prices will continue to fall?
Should I wait a bit longer before I look to buying another property?
Thanks again
pam

adr0ck

pampam wrote: »

Thanks for all your replies.
I feel better just knowing I am not on my own.
Do you think house prices will continue to fall?
Should I wait a bit longer before I look to buying another property?
Thanks again
pam

you have to decide what fits your own circumstances

though i do predict that england will win the next world cup (does that help at all)

Robert_Sterling_3

When baying property never count your chickens before they are hatched. They are hatched only when you exchange contracts.

russ21282

I was looking at a repo last month, after viewing a couple of times over a few weeks, the EA said there was an offer in on it (£2k more than asking which was put in 2 weeks previously) This raised alarm bells straight away as why would somebody offer more than the asking price in this climate and why didn't they say there was an offer from the beginning.

We checked the local paper for the public notice and nothing came up, they rang a few weeks later and said it had fallen through and they had knocked £6k off the asking price. I said i'd have a think about it and rang up later that day to put in an offer, however they now told me somebody else had put an offer in £4k more than the asking price!

Needless to say we walked away.

So they could just be trying to bluff to get a little more out of you. that's the conclusion i came to with ours.