Gazumped on Exchange Day - Repo

Comms69

Bumziggy wrote: »

Hey experts,

We are buying a repossessed property (125k) and have absolutely everything in place. My solicitors rang up the sellers solicitors to exchange only to be told a higher offer has been made that morning and they were told to not exchange until further notice.

At that point in time the higher offer was not accepted and the EA phoned me and asked if I would up my offer, to which I played hard ball and said no.. we are about to exchange. I rang him back later to get an update as to whether they were accepting the higher offer or not (which I believe is 2k more) and he said they were considering it... Couple of hours later he tells me they have accepted the higher offer.

Am I missing something here? None of this makes any sense. Why were we not able to exchange, they had not accepted the offer at that point. It all seems a bit suspicious to me that on the day we are exchanging they receive a higher offer, which should be submitted in writing according to the public notice, and that offer has made its way to the selling agent LSL who then instructured their solicitors to not exchange all within a few hours. During all this LSL has contacted their client RBS advised I'm not upping my offer and RBS have given them a decision to accept the higher offer despite being in a position to exchange now. It took LSL and RBS 3 days to accept my offer and all of a sudden they have a rocket up the rear for the sake of 2k? - legal duty to sell for the best possible price

What should I do? Can I ask the AE for proof of this higher offer? - you can ask, but not obliged to provide Should I ask for some sort of letter stating they have withdrawn my offer for it to be official? - you can ask, but not obliged to provide Do I have a right to know now (not wait for public notice) what the higher offer is? - no Should I just play it cool, say nothing and hope its all smoke and mirrors to squeeze me? - it's not Is that a thing in these circumstances.

As you can probably tell by the time of this post that I'm losing sleep over this. I thought we were home and dry on Tuesday.

Thanks

Buying a repo always carries this risk. There's no chain, no personal decisions; it's as simple as offer B is more than offer A, accept offer B

AnotherJoe

Had you agreed to match the £2k providing you exchanged next day you might have got it. This wasn't a situation to "play hardball" on unless you couldn't afford the extra £2k or didn't think the property was worth it.
It's not like a private seller playing games, this would have been for real.
If you are still keen maybe you could up it by £3k now eg £1k over bid, again contingent on immediate exchange, but the bank may be quite happy to get into an auction process.
You've been outmanoeuvred by the new bidder, not by the bank, solicitors or EA

phoebe1989seb

We purchased a repo twenty months ago. During the process a very slightly higher offer came in and we increased ours by £5k. We were fortunate being cash buyers (we had already completed on the sale of our house and were staying with family) and had an excellent conveyancing solicitor so knew we could move quickly, which we did and no further offers came through. Even so, the process had to start from scratch as per the repo process.

We were perfectly happy to increase our offer to secure the house as we knew we were getting a great deal - the price we eventually paid was £125k less than that which the repossessed people had originally tried to sell it at

In the OP's position, unless they don't feel that a further two or three thousand represents good value, I'd be increasing my offer to slightly higher than that currently on the table as the OP is ready to exchange, which the other party may not be.......

scalextric

This happened to me, upped by 5K, I upped mine, went back and forward a few times till I pulled out. Think it went 15k over the asking price (which was only 60k odd originally). It was the day before I was due to get the keys and I had thought they were calling me to tell me what time to collect them. I didnt even know someone could do this at that late a stage, but its just repossessions that it can be done on as far as I know now. I was well annoyed to say the least!

Surrey_EA

scalextric wrote: »

but its just repossessions that it can be done on as far as I know now.

It can happen on any sale, at any stage, up until the point at which contracts are exchanged.

greatgimpo

Offer them £5k more and pull out at the last second just to pee them off - after all you've got bills to pay anyway.

G_M

Surrey_EA wrote: »

It can happen on any sale, at any stage, up until the point at which contracts are exchanged.

Strange that somany people don't understand what 'Exchange of Contracts' means.


Until the exchange, there is no binding contract. Hence the name.......

sillyhilly

G_M wrote: »

Strange that somany people don't understand what 'Exchange of Contracts' means.


Until the exchange, there is no binding contract. Hence the name.......

I think the issue is more that it's absolutely ridiculous that neither the buyer or seller have any protection until that exchange of contracts. The whole !!!!!! needs a reform.

You only have to look on these forums to see how many innocent, well intentioned and proceedable individuals are out of pocket, potentially in the 1000s, just because someone has a sudden change of heart and suffers no economic penalty.

AdrianC

sillyhilly wrote: »

I think the issue is more that it's absolutely ridiculous that neither the buyer or seller have any protection until that exchange of contracts.

There is always going to be a line after which both are committed, and before which neither are. The issue is not really one of where in the process that is.

If the offer itself was instantly legally binding, that would cause at least as many problems.

AdrianC

greatgimpo wrote: »

Offer them £5k more and pull out at the last second just to pee them off - after all you've got bills to pay anyway.

Most people get over petty vindictiveness sometime around the end of primary school.