My sealed envelope bid was not considered fair.

oldcarpenter

I fully complied to the procedure and was a cash buyer. The property was owned by a bank who had repossessed it. My tender was for £500 above any bid up to X amount. It was sold for under the X amount by £8,500. After the sale the estate agents contacted me saying they considered my tender was unfair to others and therefore was not accepted. Before I waste time investigating if there was any friend or family dodgy connections between the agent and purchaser any views please.

rpc

You don't bid like that - it isn't an auction. The bid should have been for a £ amount with any other conditions required.

You should have bid X if that is what you thought the house was worth.

Loopgames

Maybe if you just stated the x amount as your final bid rather than knock out everyone under it by £500. They probably don't encourage that sort of bidding.

I can see where you are coming from but I can also see how they would deem your bid as unfair to others.

harrup

Not what you want to hear.....but whilst I admire your creative approach to the sealed bids dilemma, WHY would you think the EA response indicates something dodgy was going on?

With all due respect, if anyone wasn't playing fair here - it was you! Not being prepared to put your best offer on the table - or, more precisely, in an envelope - thereby risking that your offer was either way too high or just a fraction too low...but opting for the safe 500 quid above anyone else...HOW is THAT a fair approach to any other bidder? What if ALL bidders adopted this strategy and no one put in an actual bid for a specific amount?

Even on eBay you will HAVE to set your maximum you are prepared to pay to obtain a certain product. But where eBay differs is that when your rivals drop out, you won't have to pay up your max. Bid.

But sealed bids aren't eBAy.......

Listen, I understand your grievance. Sealed bids are the pits. You DO risk overpaying or JUST losing out by a ridiculous amount.....but that's just how that system works.

societys_child

That's not how it works, you have to state a specific figure.
When they said your tender was unfair, I think they were just being polite.

There isn't anything to investigate.

p00hsticks

harrup wrote: »

What if ALL bidders adopted this strategy and no one put in an actual bid for a specific amount?

... then they'd all be stating the absolute maximum that they'd be prepared to pay for the property and the poor s*d whose house has been repossessed would probably come out of it slighty better off financially.

I don't think there would be a problem with this approach being adopted in general, providing the agents organising the sealed bids made it plain to all at the outset that this type of bidding was acceptable.

But presumably in this case they didn't, and were asking for straight figures. Therefore I think that they are right in saying that it was unfair to the other bidders (although I wonder how they can justify to the owner that they could have got £500 more for the property, when I was under the impression that they had to take steps to ensure they got the best price possible for it.)

harrup

p00hsticks wrote: »

... then they'd all be stating the absolute maximum that they'd be prepared to pay for the property and the poor s*d whose house has been repossessed would probably come out of it slighty better off financially.

I don't think there would be a problem with this approach being adopted in general, providing the agents organising the sealed bids made it plain to all at the outset that this type of bidding was acceptable.

But presumably in this case they didn't, and were asking for straight figures. Therefore I think that they are right in saying that it was unfair to the other bidders (although I wonder how they can justify to the owner that they could have got £500 more for the property, when I was under the impression that they had to take steps to ensure they got the best price possible for it.)

??????

I'm sorry....I don't follow.

With sealed bids everyone DOES submit their very best offer...whatever amount this may be. And if you REALLY want that property you ACCEPT the possibility that the offer below you was for SIGNIGICANTLY less.

If you can't stomach that - and I personally can't - don't partake in sealed bids.

Which is why we won't. Did it twice..never again.

G_M

You were asked for a bid.

You did not provide a bid.

So your non-bid was ignored.

Quite right too.

googler

I've seen more than one property (or land plot) advertisement where the agent has specifically stated in the particulars that they would not accept offers which were couched in terms of reference to other offers (in the same way as the OP has done here), and that they would only accept offers for specific amounts.

lb364

I don't normally stick up for EAs but if they were actually dodgy they would have said the highest bid was the X amount you stated and let you pay £8,500 more...

greggymagic

You tried to be clever - it didn't work. Estate agent has acted in best interests of all the people who bidded fairly. Nothing dodgy there.

You must realise that you were just trying to fiddle the sealed bid system by saying you'd b£tchslap everyone else by £500! !