Beginners guide to gazumping

Wig

Forget the morals of the situation for a moment.... We are after all talking about getting the best price for the seller if nothing else.

Can you tell me, please...

Buyer X is interested in a property.(has not made any offer but has shown interest). 'X' discovers one morning that it has sold, is really annoyed. What is the best way of finding out what the accepted offer was so as to be able to counter offer and hopefully gazump them?

If you ask the EA to request permission from the seller to disclose the accepted price do they have to do this and is it legal? Can you also ask them what counter offer would they accept? i.e. "the offer accepted was 100K and they will only accept a counter offer of 105K, anything less and the offer will be refused".

pawpurrs

For a start you mean Gazumping.....
The EA is not under any obligation to tell you what the offer on the table is...but may say its near the asking price. If you want the property then make an offer of what its worth to you, if you make an offer, then it does have to be put forward, and the vendor can then say, whether or not they would consider changing buyers.
The Agent may try and discourage you from Gazumping, how long has the sale been tied up?

Doozergirl

Presumably you're talking about gazumping, not gazundering as no-one in their right mind would accept a lower offer!

No one has to tell you what was accepted. If you need to know then you'll have to knock on the door to ask directly or make an offer which the EA would be obliged to pass on. An EA will not be keen to get into deep conversation with you.

Wig

I read the word 'Gazunder' on another thread and it prompted me to write this thread. I had forgotten the right word to use would be gazump.

Does the EA have no duty to pass on to the seller that a buyer has requested information from the seller*? That's really bad law, if true.

i.e. I ask the EA... "Could you ask the seller for permission to tell me what the price accepted was, So that I can consider if I can afford a better offer?"

The sale was accepted sometime last week, so it's early days..

The vendor lives at the house so I could ask directly. Just wondered what the best course might be. I could wait for the deal to fall through, which would strengthen my position, but could mean losing the property.


Oh the stresses of house buying!

TEDDYRUKSPIN

English law. LOL. If scottish law were in place, none of the above will be happening.

To gazump or not to gazump. The estate agent has legal obligation not to disclose due to contract laws. But... you can approach the seller directly if you really like the house and the seller can back out of the sale and then accept your offer.

But..... what stops you messing about and gazundering the seller later on?

michael1983l

Gazumping is totally wrong in my opinion, how would you like it if you had agreed a sale, paid solicitors fees and survey costs only to have an !!!!!! come in and offer a few grand over your price. 3 k down the toilet for the original buyer. If you wanted the property you should have put a bid in quicker.

Wig

I think 3K is overstepping the mark by quite a lot, There would be no conveyancing fee, if my offer was accepted now, less than one week (including the long weekend, we have all had) after the initial acceptance, there would also be likely no survey done yet, and could easily be cancelled.
Likely to cost the other buyer nothing at all at this early stage.

R&C

We are hoping to do this ourselves.

We had an offer rejected on a house on thursday afternoon, it sounds as though our offer was higher than the other couples but they are chain free and our flat isn't yet sold. The property has been left in a will and is being shared amongst two beneficiaries so we have been told that it really isn't about the money, as I guess the difference in our offers may have only been a grand to each beneficiary... who knows? Anyway, by a stroke of luck, we found a buyer on saturday for our flat, so now we want to re offer on the house we lost out on. We're going to see if our buyers can complete in 28 days though before making the offer so that the vendors of the house we want to buy can be reassured that we can turn things around quickly. I don't think I would do this to someone had it been a few weeks and lots of money had been spent, but I highly doubt any money has been paid out over the easter weekend.

pawpurrs

I notice that you changed the tittle of your thread, how do I do this please?

Doozergirl

R&C, If its' a leasehold flat you're selling it may well take longer than 28 days. I doubt you need to push exact timescales on the vendors as 'asap' is sufficient. Otherwise it gets into a situation of 'but you promised' when they actually didn't have any control over how long it takes, All you can do as a buyer is respond to everything immediately and keep geeing people up. Don't set yourselves up for trouble later on by setting dates at the beginning.

Doozergirl

pawpurrs wrote: »

I notice that you changed the tittle of your thread, how do I do this please?

I think you hit the 'go advanced' button when you're in edit mode, then you can see it.