Can the seller accepts two offers?

kellye14

Our seller has accepted an offer from EA A on the day we viewed the house with EA B. We put in an offer a few days later and got accepted and was told the seller will reject their first offer from EA A. So out EA steal the deal from EA A.

We started the searches and have received a draft contract from the buyer's solicitor today.

However we noticed EA A still has the property as under offer on their website and I called EA A today and they said they have offer accepted through them.

We are worrying that the seller might have accepted two offers from two EA.

I have asked the seller serveral times to ask EA A to remove the under offer sign and the respond was EA A is still marketing the property and because EA A is quite aggressive and they were not happy with seller being rejected their offer so they refuse to remove the under offer sign. Our EA insisted we are the only offer the seller has accepted now and we also got an email from seller solicitor saying they have no instruction to send the draft contract to a third party.

We do not want to enter some sort of contract race as we know the buyer from EA A is cash buyer and we are mortage buyer but with a higher offer.

Do you think we can trust the seller and take our EA word for it?

Thank you in advance.

david29dpo

It is legal to have a contract race but illegal if the buyers are not informed.
In my case it was the sellers fault. I "won" and the seller was forced to pay the lost buyers fees.

kellye14

david29dpo wrote: »

It is legal to have a contract race but illegal if the buyers are not informed.
In my case it was the sellers fault. I "won" and the seller was forced to pay the lost buyers fees.

Thanks. At what stage the buyers have to be informed? Right from the beginning? Also how can you force the seller to cover the list buyer fees?

ACG

I had this with a house i was looking at, i was told "whoever comes to haydock (from manchester) first to sign the paperwork gets the house - this was after them accepting my offer.

I told them to **** off, if we agree something its a done deal in my eyes paperwork or no paperwork. It seemed like the other person did the same as the house was still up 3 months later.

To answer your question, yes it can be done. Until you have sign to exchange and complete either party can pull out for whatever reason.

rpc

kellye14 wrote: »

we also got an email from seller solicitor saying they have no instruction to send the draft contract to a third party.

This is the critical bit. If the EA is speaking, they may be lying. If a solicitor says that there are no other offers proceeding, then there are no other offers proceeding.

Get your solicitor to make it clear to the other solicitor that you are the only offer that is progressing.

You can be gazumped, but you cannot be put in a contract race without being informed.