Trying to buy a repossessed house

borntodj

Hi, I hope someone here can help me.

I placed an offer on a repossessed house in May and there was another party who were interested so we were asked to provide our best and final offers within 5 days (mine was slightly higher to start with).

Unfortunately mine was not the highest offer (I was told the other offer was "significantly higher"), but two months on the house is still up for sale and is still being advertised.

I decided to put in another offer yesterday to see what the outcome was as they woudn't tell me how much the other offer was for (is this allowed?), and it seems that my new offer was higher than the one which the other party placed. I was told though that the vendor (the bank, I assume) had rejected my offer because they were so far down the line with the other offer and they had "authorised the exchange of contracts".

To me this sound like they have not actually exchanged yet so surely they have to consider that my offer is better therefore should accept it? If I had not been messed around by the estate agent in the first place and they had given me more information, I could have given them this offer a few weeks ago!

Is there anything I can do?

Thanks in advance for your help.
Danny

sonastin

Speaking from my own experience, it could be that there is something problematic about this house. The reason that it has taken so long to get to exchange of contracts could be because a degree of negotiation has been going on in the background which you are not aware of. When your solicitor / surveyor comes across the same issue, you might not be willing to pay the higher price you are currently offering. So the vendor would rather stick to the guaranteed "ready-to-exchange" offer than risk losing out on the sale completely for the sake of a few more ££.

I offered full asking price on a repossession. Turned out that the loft conversion and the garage extension didn't have building regs approval. The vendor tried to regularise them but when they realised that the garage needed to be rebuilt/underpinned and the loft conversion effectively ripped out and started again, they agreed to drop the price instead. Another buyer coming along at the end of the 9 months I'd been waiting would have thought they were offering on a 4-bed-chalet-bungalow-with-double-garage, not the 3-bed-bungalow-with-threat-of-building-control-enforcement that I bought. Had there been another offer, I would have hoped that the vendors wouldn't risk someone else pulling out when they found out about all of the problems. As it was, I don't think the EA were even conducting viewings so it didn't matter.

PPPingu

What country is this is -England/Wales/Scotland/N.Ireland?

borntodj

sonastin - sounds like a nightmare! I know there are a couple of issues with the property (possible garage conversion problem) but the price accounts for this with the area that its in so wouldn't be an issue to me as I would just get it sorted out after purchase.

PPPingu - The house is in England.

madhouseof4

We are also trying to purchase a repossession and we are worried about getting another offer put in at the 11th hour. After doing tons of research about gazumping/being gazumped is that in most cases, the vendor will usually stick with the buyer who is closer to exchanging to get their money quicker, unless the offer is significantly more. It does sound like there are issues that may have been thrown up during the survey which are taking time to resolve and in this case they may be worried that when you came across the same issues, you would pull out or need time to negotiate.

GDB2222

borntodj wrote: »

To me this sound like they have not actually exchanged yet so surely they have to consider that my offer is better therefore should accept it? If I had not been messed around by the estate agent in the first place and they had given me more information, I could have given them this offer a few weeks ago!

Is there anything I can do?

First, they don't have to accept your offer. They can take into account how much the difference is, how far advanced the other transaction is, and how likely they think you are to proceed.

Second, if you really want to be to be taken seriously at this very late stage, you need to offer 5% to 10% more than the other offer, not just a few £100s. And then you'll have to show that you really mean it.

Oog

This has just happened to me:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3354106

I got the land registry documents, looked at which bank help the loan for the house, rang them to check that the EA had actually done the job of passing on the significantly higher offer, found out why it had been declined (EA failed to confirm I had viewed the house-very important for the bank) and then resubmitted my offer...