Threatening letter from unsuccesful buyer

RobertoMoir

Soubrette wrote: »

Except the unsuccessful buyers were not told they were in a contract race

http://www.borthwicks.co.uk/a-z/contract_race.html



In fact the Estate Agents were explicitly told not to tell the second set of buyers that another offer had been accepted until after exchange.

This may give an 'in' for the gazumped to claim something.

Sou

Wouldn't such a claim be against the professionals who had acted improperly rather than the seller?

RX-78

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Wouldn't such a claim be against the professionals who had acted improperly rather than the seller?

Probably - this is from earlier reply from timmyt

timmyt wrote: »

you are ok, but sending out a second contract without informing the first solicitors is a breach of your lawyers professional conduct rules....and so they might (I will check this) be fined to the tune of the second buyers losses as the penalty...

But the very fact the professionals themselves condemning such act in itself is a good sign of condemnation of OP's action. Sadly the buyers has been hit by a loophole in the law.

banwa

Londonsu wrote: »

We did asked the EA not to let the second buyers know until we had exchanged contracts with the first buyer incase something went wrong.

What a mean thing to do. I hope I never have to deal with someone like you in any future house-buying

toffe

dander wrote: »

Frankly, this is balls.

no it isn't....

Tracking down someones new home address who you once almost bought a house from to send threatening and distessing letters demanding money you have no entitlement to is harrassment/borderline stalking.

unless you know of any legal statute that would suggest the sender of these letters has a right to be making such demands it is not (frankly) "balls" as you put it.

Soubrette

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Wouldn't such a claim be against the professionals who had acted improperly rather than the seller?

I think it's a shame that the second vendors don't post on here as I feel they probably have a case (for costs not for £5K) against both the estate agents and the OPs solicitor. At the least, if it were me, I would making complaints to their respective professional bodies.

Also if either the estate agent or the OP's sol had advised her that she was acting improperly then the whole situation would not have occurred - both vendors would have been informed that a contract race was now on and would at least have been aware of the situation.

I think though it does show that the OP did acted improperly by instructing the estate agent to say nothing, even if this was originally in ignorance. As I said before, it might even given the vendors an 'in' against the seller themselves but I am no solicitor so I don't know, if I were the vendor, I certainly would be seeking further advice.

I suspect the OP will get away with her rather poor behaviour though because if I were pursuing that avenue I would not waste time writing to her myself, the first correspondence after the initial refusal to pay costs would be a letter from my solicitor.

Sou

dander

So maybe they looked up the address in the phone book, or maybe asked the solicitor and sent a letter to it. A letter.

That's a hell of a long way from being illegal in anyway. It's about as close to "harassment" or "stalking" as the chuggers who stop you in the street and try to get you to sign up for a charity direct debit. To call it that is ridiculous and insulting to anyone who is genuinely a victim of either of those crimes.

terryw

Er no, toffe. You can whatsoever you like in this country so long as you don't break the law.
The onus of proof is on you to prove your assertion. Until you do, I shall side with dander's brief summary.

new_home_owner_3

Morally it is so wrong, and i can not believe that people who come on here and say its okay, you people need to look at yourselves in the mirror if you think this person has acted rightly.

I just hope they get what they deserve, i think the only reason they never told the second buyers they had a higher offer, was they was going to use them if the first buyer who had messed them around so much pulled out.

Why they couldnt be honest is well out of order and i think if this had happened to me i would be having half a ton of cow !!!!!! delivered on their driveway, and that would just be for starters.

toffe

terryw wrote: »

Er no, toffe. You can whatsoever you like in this country so long as you don't break the law.
The onus of proof is on you to prove your assertion. Until you do, I shall side with dander's brief summary.

You can not do whatever you like in this country, not if it causes another person to feel alarmed distressed or in fear of harrassment.

I do sympathise with the buyer who lost out but it happens everyday in property buying and selling, the fact is you have no legal agreement until contracts are exchanged and if you have spent a fortune on survey fees and legal expenses and the the vendor decides to pull out of the sale for nothing more than he has decided he doesn't like the cut of your jib, as the law stands, you have no legal grounds on which to pursue a vendor, and so in doing so you risk a counter action for harrassment.

Untill contracts are exchanged a sale can fall through at any time, thats the harsh realities of buying property.

pooranddesperate

Have to say that sending a single letter to the OP asking for compensation is very unlikely to constitute harassment (it is difficult to say for definite as it will depend on the content).

The reason for this is that under the law harassment has to be a 'course of conduct' - this by definition has to be at least 2 incidents, and the fewer the incidents there are the less likely it can be said that there is a course of conduct.

Secondly, a court would have to say that sending letters amount to 'harassment', and that the letter sender knew (or ought to have know) that it amounted to harassment.

Thirdly, it would have to be shown that the course of conduct pursued by the letter righter was unreasonable - from all the above posts it appears as if there are a number of people who would say that it was entirely reasonable!