Getting my money back after being gazumped

bradshaw_chris

Hi,

It's a long story, but I was effectively gazumped earlier this year. On the day of completion the seller decided she wanted an extra £15,000 for the house. I pleaded with her morals, but to no avail. She sold the next week for £25,000 more than the price that we'd agreed, so I guess it's hard to resist - although a condition of my offer was to take the house off the market.

Anyway, we lost £1000 in lost fees so our solicitor wrote a letter to her solicitor to ask for it back. We got a letter back from her solicitor agreeing to meet us half way, at £500, once the sale had completed. The sale completed a couple of months ago, but she is now refusing to cough up. :mad:

My question is, does the letter from her solicitor constitute a legally binding commitment that I can hold her to?

Thanks
Chris

BobProperty

Nothing counts for anything until contracts are signed and exchanged.

I think you will be lucky to get anything. I can easily think of reasons why the vendor could not pay anything despite you having a letter off their solicitor.

maninthestreet

"Nothing counts for anything until contracts are signed and exchanged"

The contracts must have been signed and exchanged, as the seller apparently pulled out on the day of completion, assuming the original poster really did mean 'completion' and not just 'exchange'

bradshaw_chris

maninthestreet wrote:

"Nothing counts for anything until contracts are signed and exchanged"

The contracts must have been signed and exchanged, as the seller apparently pulled out on the day of completion, assuming the original poster really did mean 'completion' and not just 'exchange'

Yep - I used the wrong word. I meant exchange. It's quite well known that there is nothing illegal about gazumping, so really I was hoping to hear that a letter from a lawyer is a "contractual" document (basically, if I take her to court can I just wave the letter at the judge/magistrate and job done?). Or is the vendor entitled to back out of this also? I guess I should be directing my query at the citizens advice bereau (or a solicitor), but if there's anyone out there who knows the answer or has had similar experience then I'd very much like to hear.

Thanks for the response guys.

Woby_Tide

as your solicitor started the request for the lost fees, what does your solicitor say? Shouldn't they be chasing on your behalf if they made teh agreement

pingua

Gosh,some people are just terrible. To think she got so much more for the house and can't even be nice enough to pay the fees back.
People just should not be able to get away with 'selling' then backing out. I would be sooo annoyed if this happened to us.

bradshaw_chris

Woby_Tide wrote:

as your solicitor started the request for the lost fees, what does your solicitor say? Shouldn't they be chasing on your behalf if they made teh agreement

He chased it up for me for the last 2 months, but got nowhere. I didn't want to incur any more solicitor's fees so decided to take it off his hands and deal with it myself. I'm at the stage now where I've sent a final warning letter, with a deadline after which I'm going to the small claims court. Although, I'm starting to wonder whether I'd win or not.

And to put this all into context, at the time of all this stress happening my partner was 3 months pregnant. It really wasn't what we needed. I got my revenge though -

BobProperty

Can I just come back on this. Given that there's no point in asking for £15,000 after you've exchanged contracts, then I assume contracts were not exchanged. My original bold reply therefore stands.

I will be interested to hear how you get on in court if it does get that far. I again assume, that this will be a county court small claim in front of a judge.

courtjester

Frankly, I think you're on a hiding to nothing and going to the small claims court will merely cost you more money.

An exchange of letters indicating 'agreement' over compensation is probably meaningless and would not represent a 'contract' to pay. There are various features which go together to make a binding contract and I doubt that the main element 'consideration' was included in the correspondence.

There is no liability to pay compensation merely because someone goes back on their 'word' and changes their mind about buying a property pre-exchange, as has already been said. Receiving a letter from their solicitor indicating that they will pay towards your cost equally doesn't add anything to that (nil) liability - it's almost certainly no more than a gesture of goodwill that they have decided to go back on also, highly doubtful that is legally enforceable by you.

I would say your best hope is to appeal to their sense of fairness and remind them politely of their agreement to compensate 50% of your costs - you almost certainly can't sue them for this and threatening them with court action will only serve to harden their views towards you.

It would need a change in the law for property offers to become binding in England & Wales and that's pretty unlikely to happen.

dmg24

Could I ask the wording used in the letter from the seller's solicitor?

I think it unlikely that you would be successful in a claim, as no consideration has been provided on your part for the £500.

AndrewSmith

Forget it and walk away. Put it down to experience as there is no court in this land that is going to judge in your favour on this or else it would open the floodgates for every person who has lost a property after spending for surveys etc, not to mention that nothing legally binding has been signed.

A solicitor's letter does not constitute a legally binding contract.

Andy