Just got gazumped :(

searchlight123

not that i would suggest for one moment that you should 'up' your offer but in your opinion, how much over your offer do you think the purchaser's bid? if it's just a few thousand then the vendor is deplorable but if it's tens of thousands, without knowing their personal circumstances, then it's more understandable, as they would have felt they had undersold the house.

horrible situation to be in but as nearly always happens in this situation, a better house will come along for you. i certainly hope it does. good luck.

leroyJ

Similar thing happened to us but on a much smaller scale.
House went to final bids, we put in an offer about 5-10% over asking price.  EA came back and said there was another higher offer, but we were preferred buyers because of our financial situation.  We were asked to increase our offer by £2k.  It was phrased in the way of "your offer won, but you need to increase by £2k".   Pretty cheeky but seemed insignificant at the time, 2k was a tiny amount compared to the full cost.

In a way, we felt thankful that our offer wasn't substantially higher than any others (i.e. we got it at the lowest possible price).
But still, the whole "best and final offers" system seems very brittle and open to abuse.  I've experienced it twice and it's never been a nice situation.

Mutton_Geoff

Think yourself lucky it only happened after a week. Imagine if it were the day before exchange. Many table thumpers on this post but I would just sit tight, there are dozens of things that can go wrong with a purchase not least the people who outbid you now getting buyers remorse that they might have overpaid. Wait until their survey is done etc and see how this pans out. Keep looking but you could be waiting in the wings to step back in if the other purchaser pulls out. With your new lower offer

Greymug

leroyJ said:

But still, the whole "best and final offers" system seems very brittle and open to abuse. 

Best and final offers is great when you're the seller.

So yeah, it can be a painful experience but it even things out when you sell.

Falafels

It's a horrible situation, and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. I feel for you!

However, sometimes the only way to win the game is to refuse to play. In this case, it doesn't mean upping your offer and squeezing your finances further, but walking away with head held high and looking for another property. Let the estate agent know that you can't go any higher (they DO push if they think you can!). There are sellers around who mean it when they say they've accepted an offer, and will not continue looking for bids. There are buyers around who will offer inflated sums, only to drop them just before exchange, and it's tempting to think that people who act unethically when selling will also attract people who act unethically when buying.

Just leave them to it! Don't involve yourself in badmouthing, playing games with offers or other things which are basically a waste of your life.

Meanwhile, there ARE other properties out there; probably more coming onto the market with the extension of the SDLT holiday, the estate agent has a realistic expectation of what you are willing to pay and knows you as a sensible applicant.

Good luck!

Skiddaw1

I agree. Walk away. It happened to us once and whilst we were peed off at the time it really did work out for the best as the house we eventually bought was heaps nicer (we eventually lived there for the best part of 20 years). These things have a way of falling into place (and I firmly believe in Karma...)

Jumblebumble

14sprocket said:

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

My advice is that once a seller  has behaved like this they are quite capable of doing it again just before exchange
I pull out now and would never take the risk of them doing this.
I ve said before we had an imbecele who would not take full asking price because he had priced low to come in Rightmoves banding
We pulled out, were devastated but a much better house came on the Market a few weeks later 

stevenbecca

just remember the higher priced bidders have still got to get a mortgage on it, for that it's got to pass the valuation. 

steampowered

The reality of the situation is that there are lots of houses on the market - especially in London!

Unless you are paying £10 million plus for completely unique properties, you'll be able to find something similar or even better soon enough.

As long as you haven't started incurring conveyancer/mortgage fees, I don't think the seller/EA are being unethical. It is only natural that the seller will want to accept the highest offer - even though it does make a mockery of the whole sealed bids process.

14sprocket

steampowered said:

The reality of the situation is that there are lots of houses on the market - especially in London!

Unless you are paying £10 million plus for completely unique properties, you'll be able to find something similar or even better soon enough.

As long as you haven't started incurring conveyancer/mortgage fees, I don't think the seller/EA are being unethical. It is only natural that the seller will want to accept the highest offer - even though it does make a mockery of the whole sealed bids process.

Has breaking your word ever not been unethical? Even though it's not legally binding under English law, it's still an agreement on paper.
We haven't yet incurred any conveyancing fees, that's fair, but we had to pull our bids on a couple of other properties (after the offer got accepted) and also handed in a notice on the rental we're currently in. All-in-all, we're not even back to square one, we're much worse off than we were (not accounting for all the time spent and the emotional rollercoaster)