Further viewings while 'under offer'?

ruggedtoast

usupnorth wrote: »

Thanks to all.

For those who referred to stopping the marketing as soon as the buyer stumped up cash on a surveyor or solicitors... In our case, it is the likely gap between us accepting an offer and finding a property that could affect this usual test of a buyer's commitment.

They're unlikely to instruct any professionals until we've completed the chain, so we'd only be relying on our agreement and on them not seeing anywhere better before we found somewhere. They'd have made no financial commitment at that point, and it would not be unreasonable for them to pull out if we took too long. It would be nice to have back-ups, although we'd make it very clear that we would not let anyone gazump them.

Viewings though? I can see why that may offend the buyers from whom we have accepted an offer.

The Rightmove definitions are useful to know, and suggest that it would only be 'Under Offer', as long as we hadn't actually accepted an offer. But I don't see how a property is really 'Sold STC' until the seller has somewhere to go and can actual enter the selling process! Maybe a new term is needed, or the definition of 'Under Offer' needs to be revised.

If you're buying its a good idea to see if your vendors are actually in a position to move. Chains can go on for months waiting for someone at the bottom who actually has some money to appear, and someone at the top to find somewhere to go, to coincide.

Thats why first time buyers are in a relatively superior position.

The situation you appear to be in is that of having no obvious time frame of when you can leave as you havent found anywhere to go.

In this scenario I wouldn't be worrying about fielding multiple offers from various potential buyers, I would concentrate on actually getting into a position where you can sell your house.

hazyjo

(My words: Also, if your EA find you buyers (and you agree a price), then you pull out cos you can't find anywhere, you might find yourself responsible for their whole fee still.)

DRP wrote: »

But the seller isn't the one to pull out - the buyer will pull out after waiting for as long as they can. Therefore the seller won't pay the EA fee.

I did actually mean the seller - sometimes a buyer will hang on indefinitely. If the seller cannot find somewhere to move to, and decides to take their property off the market (with the seller still wanting to buy), the seller could find themselves responsible for fees.

Was just another scenario to consider before they should think about accepting any offers.

I wanted to make them aware in case, if they couldn't find somewhere and their buyer hung on, they wanted to keep their house on the market rather than withdraw it/end their contract.

Jx

DRP

hazyjo wrote: »

(My words: Also, if your EA find you buyers (and you agree a price), then you pull out cos you can't find anywhere, you might find yourself responsible for their whole fee still.)




I did actually mean the seller - sometimes a buyer will hang on indefinitely. If the seller cannot find somewhere to move to, and decides to take their property off the market (with the seller still wanting to buy), the seller could find themselves responsible for fees.

Was just another scenario to consider before they should think about accepting any offers.

I wanted to make them aware in case, if they couldn't find somewhere and their buyer hung on, they wanted to keep their house on the market rather than withdraw it/end their contract.

Jx

Yes, you're right in that situation they may well have to pay the fee. I should have made clear I was speaking from our experience in 2008, when our buyer pulled out and we then took the house off the market (nothing was selling at that point) - we didn't get charged.

usupnorth

Having had a good response to the original topic, I'm happy to follow that interesting deviation:

On being charged (as the seller) withdrawing from a sale... Our contract states that we have to pay 'remuneration' to our estate agent if we agree to sell to a buyer they introduced, and we later withdraw. It does not explicitly say that this should be their whole potential fee. Theoretically, once we were to withdraw from a sale, they could demand 'remuneration' of some sort there and then, and cease marketing the property any further, seeing that either party can terminate the sole agency agreement with two weeks' notice. I doubt many agents would do that, and we could challenge the amount of 'remuneration' anyway, as it was not defined in the contract. It does make you think though!

If the agent were to allow such remuneration to be deferred until a further sale were to be agreed and completed, I can imagine a situation where a seller may have changed their mind about selling the property, but not want to incur the fees for which they had made themselves liable, even keeping the property superficially 'on the market' if they were strapped for cash, until they could afford to pay the agent off!