Gazeal

Willsie01

I hope some forumites can share with me their thoughts on a Gazeal agreement to prevent Gazumping or Gazundering.

eddddy

It seems like it is essentially a 'Reservation Agreement' - they have been debated on this forum many times.

Essentially, both buyer and seller sign the 'Reservation Agreement' when an offer is accepted. If the buyer or seller back out without a 'good reason', they have to pay a fee to the other party.


The challenge is defining in the contract in advance what a 'good reason' is. 

If there's a dispute over the agreement, they talk about arbitration being carried out by an independent Judge and a QC (presumably a KC now) - but that sounds like it would cost a fortune.


But I guess it might stop some people from changing their minds for frivolous reasons.

lookstraightahead

The issue is good reason.

you can see from just having a forum on buying and selling that everyone has their good reasons to disagree with each other. 

user1977

Even if a buyer and seller vaguely agree with the principle of this, I can see the lawyers spending just as long negotiating the pre-contract contract as the actual contract.

Other solutions are possible.

Catsaregods

In my experience this was a complete scam and unfit for purpose. I believe this has made a mockery of us. We could only accept an offer on our house if we first agreed to have a reservation agreement with Gazeal in place, the buyers also. So far so good. We were sold this product as a sort of pre-emptive measure to prevent the buyer from pulling out of the sale for no good reason. If they are willing to sign etc they must be serious about buying the property. We read the clauses and small print but be warned it is very ambiguous. Things which would appear to be in the sellers' favour are not. After months of extensions to the agreed terms (because of delays in the sellers submitting information and delays with their brokers receiving and passing on the same) we had to ask are these people serious about buying our house? The answer was always strongly affirmative and if we could just hang on for a further few days/ weeks/ months there would probably be a sale. We took our house off the market for months while these buyers faffed us around and then in the end they pulled out. They could have just changed their minds but because of the RA they were able to cite clause 9(e) of the RA which says that a party may withdraw reasonably by reason of Failure to secure required finance: Failure by the buyer to secure a mortgage offer or other form of finance that may be required for the purchase of the property. In order to prove that the buyers had misrepresented themselves we would have had to produce evidence, evidence that would never have been granted to us by their brokers acting on their behalf and due to data protection we were not given this information before we accepted their offer. We were never even privy to their exact situation before agreeing to their offer. We relied on the information seen by our estate agents and their lawyer. We were told they had the funds and a mortgage in place. We have wasted money we cannot afford on this product and think it was entirely mis-sold to us. We moved out of the property at the first agreed date so had the additional expense of renting another whilst paying the mortgage and council tax for our own. It is no guarantee at all that you will be able to claim anything if the other party pulls out. 

fackers_2

So how would that work if say the rics survey comes back with mega red markers and it's enough to put the house on for sale, surely if the seller thinks they can pay out this deal + still get the house sold elsewhere, is it not valid? 

In Canada they have to give the whole deposit up front when the agreement is made. The system needs a mega overhaul, because playing with peoples lives is just horrid.

propertyrental

.... 

The system needs a mega overhaul, because playing with peoples lives is just horrid.

now why has no one else ever thought that?

Like other posters on the forum. Or the Law Society. Or a Parliamentary Commission. Or the surveyors' RICS. Or ..... or......

fackers_2

propertyrental said:

.... 

The system needs a mega overhaul, because playing with peoples lives is just horrid.

now why has no one else ever thought that?

Like other posters on the forum. Or the Law Society. Or a Parliamentary Commission. Or the surveyors' RICS. Or ..... or......

Multi billion dollar question ehh?! 

Because no one is prepared to risk the election in standing out to make a difference. With it an ever ongoing process of chains, it’s hard to set a date for it to change.