Just got gazumped :(

14sprocket

Feeling completely broken and devastated right now, so posting to this forum for some support and ideas...
Trying to but a house in London, found a property that both me and my wife loved, marketed by a very famous estate agency.

• Made a bid, which was matched by another prospective buyer. 
• The agent went to the "best and final bid" stage with sealed envelopes.
• We put forward a reasonably aggressive bid - 6% above guide price
• Won the auction (mid-last week) - our offer was accepted, happy days
• Set wheels in motion with the solicitor, already got instructed by the seller's agent
• Took a call from the same estate agent this morning telling me that the other buyers (whose bid failed in the "closed envelope" auction) put another offer forward and the agent had to oblige and send it to the seller
• The seller decided to accept the higher offer and do a 180 on us
• The agent asked if we're willing to increase our offer to potentially match the competitors - we can guesstimate where it ultimately landed

So here we are, feeling incredibly devastated, after having celebrated the new dream home .... Understand the nature of gazumping, so not sure if there's much the estate agent should have done here. Also feeling very queasy about upping the offer further - it feels ridiculous after the original offer was accepted and the solicitors were instructed... we'll be pushing our personal finances to a strain  as well.
Not sure if people have any suggestions or recommendations how to deal with this

NinjaTune

Surely "best and final" should mean just that?  Absolute snakes IMO to do that.

Sorry, no helpful suggestions just wanted to offer a bit of sympathy.  Horrible situation for you

purplebutterfly

As a FTB, this absolutely terrifies me.   Why would any ethical EA  even accept the offer after a sale is agreed? This is truly horrible and my heart goes out to you

14sprocket

NinjaTune said:

Surely "best and final" should mean just that?  Absolute snakes IMO to do that.

Sorry, no helpful suggestions just wanted to offer a bit of sympathy.  Horrible situation for you

Thanks.
Not an honorable thing to do for sure, and not something I would do myself.
Some people don't believe in karma, or in what goes around comes around

Grumpelstiltskin

I am afraid if you are not prepared to increase your offer then you have to move on.

I know how you feel it happened to me in the early 1970s, but I stuck to my guns as I felt I had offered what it was worth.

Disappointing but in my case another good house appeared out of the blue and no problems with it.

tealady

Tell the agent you will not be making any further offers. You dont need sellers like that. I think you dodged a bullet.
Book appointments to view other houses, there will be others you fall in love with.

Thrugelmir

14sprocket said:

Not sure if people have any suggestions or recommendations how to deal with this

Have a go at the EA to vent your frustration. Then continue to search bad mouthing the agents in the process. 

14sprocket

purplebutterfly said:

As a FTB, this absolutely terrifies me.   Why would any ethical EA  even accept the offer after a sale is agreed? This is truly horrible and my heart goes out to you

Apparently EA is under legal obligation to pass any offers over to the vendor, regardless of circumstances. Not sure if there's much blame to be put on the agent, to be honest.
This is really down to the ethics of another buyer, as well as the seller who already accepted our offer and "shook hands" on it

lookstraightahead

Feel pleased they didn't do it later on, tell them to get lost and move on - there's people like this everywhere. You will find something 

14sprocket

Grumpelstiltskin said:

I am afraid if you are not prepared to increase your offer then you have to move on.

I know how you feel it happened to me in the early 1970s, but I stuck to my guns as I felt I had offered what it was worth.

Disappointing but in my case another good house appeared out of the blue and no problems with it.

This is what we may end up doing... feels ridiculous to increase our offer just because some people don't want to play fair

Slithery

purplebutterfly said:

As a FTB, this absolutely terrifies me.   Why would any ethical EA  even accept the offer after a sale is agreed? This is truly horrible and my heart goes out to you

Nothing to do with ethics. EA's are legally bound to pass on all offers.