Bogus bidding war? urgent help required.

Actinolite

Hi everyone,

First time poster, long time reader and listener on Radio 2.

We have put an offer in on a house with Verity Frearson. On Saturday they would not relay our offer to the vendor telling us that they would collate all offers and send them to the vendor on Monday.

Monday has come and we have been told that they are contacting all interested parties and asking them to put in their best bid which the vendor will then choose from on Tuesday.

They have told us that there are 5-6 interested parties.

I am worried that we are being milked here but I don't know what our rights are. Can we ask for proof of other interested parties? What else can we do to ensure that we are not being done over and paying over the odds for this house ?

Doozergirl

Does the house need work at all?

It does sound that if the estate agent wouldn't even put your offer forward, then there is significant interest. An estate agent *may* make up one other party, but 5 or 6 is really pushing it!

Nothing you can except hope that yours is the best bid. If you want to put it all down on paper, explain the strengths of your offer then it might swing it for if you are in a better position than someon offering more It will show you are organised, if nothing else.

Welcome to MSE! :beer:

CycloneUK_2

Thats a strange way of doing it. Nothing you can do really, just place a offer for what your prepared to pay and don't budge on it or look elsewhere for a house.


I had my first offer accepted on a bungalow, it was offers over 159950k and i placed an offer of 159k and they said the vendor was looking for over 163k and there were other people who would be viewing the property so i needed to place an higher offer asap. Did i? no because some estate agents will say anything to get you to up your offer. I placed the offer on a Thursday then the EA phoned monday to see if i would go higher, i played there game and said i would have to think about it and i had some other properties to view first, they phoned back 2 hours later saying the vendor had accepted.

Be firm with them and only offer what you can afford and are prepared to pay for the house.

pboae

Presumably you are in Yorkshire somewhere :-\ Just be aware when you are asking for advice etc that the system they run in places round here is weird. Houses go on under priced with the aim of forcing it to bids. It's not like the rest of the country.

We refused to do it, went in at a couple of thousand over the minimum guide price, no chain, etc, but with a note saying if it went to bids we weren't interested. The EA was furious, and threatened not to put the offer forward, but he did and we got the house. We were also told there were several other interested parties, but I didn't believe him.

Don't be pressured into spending more than you think it's worth, but remember you may still be able to haggle a little over the price once the survey is in.

Actinolite

Oh my God! We're in Harrogate!

Actinolite

Thanks for the advice.:T

I have a game plan now.

The asking price is £165k, we're going in at 168.5k.

Do you think we can ask for proof of other bids if ours is succesful?

ben500

I would imagine getting embroiled in bargaining like this is very likely to result in you purchasing at a higher price than your safety threshold and put you in a position where you find it difficult to make the repayments in years to come. Don't do it set your price and stick to it, there is more than one dream home for everybody you'll find another if this one doesn't go your way.

chilli_dog

Think ive heard of this before, is'nt it called a sealed bid system or something?

Tyders

yup its called going to sealed bids. It happens normally when supply is low and there are a few even steven parties involved i.e. similar offer and situation i.e. ftbs, cash etc.

The only advice in this situation i can give is make an Offer to them based on what the property is worth to you. If you are happy with your offer and win then fantastic, if you lose then you wont beat yourself up over it as it wasnt worth anymore to you than what you offered.

I also dont think you have any legal rights to see any other offers but i may be wrong.

Doozergirl

Actinolite wrote:

Do you think we can ask for proof of other bids if ours is succesful?

No, it's not your house they're selling unfortunately.

pboae

It's not quite sealed bids, it's sort of half way between the scottish system and the english system. It only seems to happen in certain parts of Yorkshire and it completely threw us when we first came.

As I understand it it goes something like this:
House goes up at a guide price (sometimes a minimum guide price).
EA accepts offers and expressions of interest.
When EA has a couple of offers it goes to bids, at some point (I am not sure if it is first round of bids or after?) people who made an expression of interest also bid.
Then there is another round of bids.
Then it is best and final offers.

But there can be additional rounds of bids, so more like an auction. Presumably you find of what the highest bid is at each round, or it wouldn't work. We never got that far, so I am not sure. I read loads on local forums about when we were trying to get to grips with it and in the end just decided it wasn't worth it, and we made our offer and left it at that.