Cheated or Gazumped by greedy seller?

loveboat12

hello and good morning everyone,

I am sure there is someone on this forum that can help and advice further,

we offered on a property and the offer was accepted we started the process and were rushed into certain services to be completed quicker and as quickly as possible as the vendor wanted to move quickly due to a separation, we requested the house to be taken off the market as now under offer and were assured that it would be taken off all 5 agencies within 48 hours.

we paid for surveys, we paid for solicitors and we paid for mortgage applications ( we choose the one recommended by the agency as the vendor wanted to have an overview of our progress and the agency did not want to delay the process and thought and advised they would be able to work faster having most of the )

we paid in excess of £1000 combined only to find out 3 weeks after that the vendor was still showing potential buyers around, we then kindly requested him to remove any marketing and he advised that he would now stop, that he wasnt' aware of further viewings being booked and then 2 weeks after emailed us saying he would want to sell the property to a new buyers who viewed and offered the full asking via an alternative agency ---

who can the law allow such behavior and not be committed to an offer being accepted and deceive us with promises and lies costing us approx over a Grant? with a family of 5 that is some serious money we just lost - rather would have given it to a charity then to various legalized entities?

can we write an email asking for the costs to be refunded or we start a legal process, maybe a small claim process? surely If I say this is it the home is yours and I will stop the viewings then I can't just change my mind and allow my costs to escalate?

any advise would be much appreciated.

Regards

Pixie5740

You're not entitled to any compensation for the costs you've paid out already. Until the point of exchange either the seller or buyer can pull out of the sale. That's just how property buying in England and Wales works.

Guest101

You've got no contract.

The seller might be morally wrong, but legally theyve done nothing wrong

mrginge

When buying a house, any pre-contract expenditure should be regarded as sunk costs (ie unrecoverable). You should either accept them as part of the risks involved or seek to limit them by not being 'rushed into certain services' without appropriate guarantees or actions being carried out by the vendor.
You may however find some of your costs are transferable to another purchase.

Such types of cost are common in many contract negotiations and are not specific to the housing market. Without a pre-contract agreement then you have no comeback.

ReadingTim

Depending on the difference between your offer and whatever the full asking price is, it might be worth stressing to the agent that you're further along the buying process than the new buyer, and if the vendor is that keen for a fast move, you're likely to get there sooner than the new person.

But if there's more than a couple of grand in it, I suspect the vendor would be happy to wait. Sorry to hear about the costs, but as another post says, some of those might be transferable to a new purchase. You may also want to be a little more picky about vendors as well as properties too - tips such as probate properties can take ages, repos need speed and lack certainty, while divorce/separation sales can be acrimonious....you almost need to be as careful in selecting the vendor as you do the property!

Landofwood

Family of 5? Send the kids round to knock-down-ginger them. It's hilarious

SnooksNJ

In Baseball they say sometimes the best deals are the ones you don't make. Here you were dealing with a seller whose a liar and a control freak so I think it's the case here as well.

kingstreet

loveboat12 wrote: »

the vendor wanted to move quickly due to a separation

In my opinion, such people often want the opposite.

They either want to drag things out as they will be paying more after moving, or they want to punish the former partner and prevent them moving on.

Accepting a higher offer may be a ploy to drag things out, rather than a real desire to get more money they will probably have to share with someone else.

After probate sales, matrimonials are probably the worst for potential delays which can be quite deliberate.

stator

Did any agents lie to you? If so complain about them.

Soot2006

e would want to sell the property to a new buyers who viewed and offered the full asking via an alternative agency ---

How does the diff between you your offer and full asking price compare to the 2x agency fees the seller will now have the pay?

loveboat12

not sure about the fees but surely there is a law about deception - lying and showing people around when an offer was accepted? would they have told us before they had interest in further viewings we would not have made such commitments so early into the process. we are talking about '000 of pounds here.

the difference is only about £5000 in total.

God help us all!