Solicitor Put In The Wrong Offer!

Wanderers

Need some advice please after my thread the other day about land tax fee being wrong (turns out the figures were wrong).


Quick story...

Called my solicitor last Monday to advise on my offer for a property, which was £236,200.

I then called again on the Tuesday morning to put it up 1k to 237,200 just before the 12pm closing date.

Solicitor calls later that day to say congratulations, your offer was accepted.

Yesterday afternoon, (Saturday), I get the papers in the door from my solicitor, which looks like they have put an offer in at £273,200, 40K more!! (This is for a house valued at 230k and offers over 215k).


I'm only hoping that whoever in the solicitors office who has typed up the letter they sent me has made a mistake somewhere. The '3' and the '7' are round the wrong way.

Cannot get a hold of my solicitor until tomorrow morning now, but freaking out about what has happened. If that's the offer they sent to the estate agent then I have no idea what happens. :eek:

G_M

Scotland? Wierd system up there...

Wanderers

Yeah, Scotland...

davidmcn

Well, that explains the LBTT calculation! Was what they sent you a copy of their offer? If so then yes the selling agents probably did receive a surprisingly high offer. Your solicitor will need to formally withdraw it (just in case you end up with a concluded contract at the wrong price - pretty unlikely though) and make an embarrassing phone call to explain what happened. If £237,200 is still the highest offer then everything's probably fine (other than you'll have p1ssed off the sellers no end)...and if not then somebody else might be getting the house.

Or the offer might be correct and it's just the wrong figure in the stuff which they've sent to you.

Wanderers

Appreciate the response. It looks like it might be a copy of what they sent to the Estate Agents, the date on the top though is from March 2015, although the rest looks fine. Hard to tell.

The house is just across the road from where I am now, have known the woman selling it all my life, even more embarrassing for me if they have done this. Who the hell would go 47k above the home report! You'd think even the estate agent would have questioned if that amount was correct.

Preying that is not what they have done, have emailed and will call them at 9am sharp. I'm raging just now, doubt i'll get much sleep. Thankfully I'm not working tomorrow.

DRP

I'd question their processes if they have included the wrong date (month & year!), and the wrong offer.

Not very reassuring for the conveyancing process ahead...

agrinnall

Wanderers wrote: »

Who the hell would go 47k above the home report! You'd think even the estate agent would have questioned if that amount was correct.

Plenty of people in Scotland would have paid that and more in the past when there were more buyers than sellers and every purchase was a competition - I never went as far as that myself but I lost a few places to people who probably did. However, I'd agree that it's much less likely these days, perhaps your solicitor is reliving the glory days?

Hope you get it sorted early on today and that you get the house at the right price.

MrJB

Whenever we make offers on behalf of clients we're required to state sums in both letters and numbers ie if you'd offered 237,200 we'd have also said two hundred and thirty seven thousand two hundred pounds.

I'm pretty sure this is enshrined in practice statements from our regulatory body.

Dan-Dan

Update please!

Wanderers

Sorry for slow update, been quite a day...

Called solicitor this morning, guy I was dealing with who put my offer in is off until Thursday, so explained situation to his partner. Was told 'not to worry' and she'd call me back. Half hour later, I get the return call. Turns out that they HAD put in the wrong offer to the estate agent which ended with me being the highest bidder (273K instead of 237K). No wonder I was the highest bidder !!!!!!! Was so !!!!ed off.. Absolutely embarrassing situation when you personally know the seller. She's just suddenly 'lost' 40K

Once they withdrew the botched offer, solicitor called me again to say that the offer I was originally putting in, (237k), would no longer the highest bid, so wouldn't be getting the house now.

I called the estate agent to try and get an idea of what was going on. There were 3 bids in total, both were higher than mine. Highest one was 5k above me, but they purchased another property this morning so that was them out. Other offer was not far above mine, and was told the seller was still wanting me to get the house anyway, so I went to the house to speak with her.

I apologised about what had happened, but she knows it was not my fault, and like the estate agent says, we've both been victims here. Spoke for a while, and she was adamant the the house was going to me, even if there was a few thousand of a difference. Nice of her and couldn't thank her enough. Will up my offer a bit as a thank you to her, now just waiting on my new solicitor to call me to put in another bid which she will be accepting.

So, a happy ending after a stressful few days, no thank's to the original solicitor...

Cheers for the replies!

seven-day-weekend

Enjoy your new home x