Bamboo auction

tommo84

Honestly, for them to honour the sale. Tired of these corporates making up rules for the little man and making up rules for themselves thinking you haven’t got the means to fight them. Fobbing me off because their interests lie solely with themselves and their clients. They’re not going to give me advice that doesn’t help them. Ultimately, I realise I probably won’t get this outcome. But it’s principle… and hopefully, the agents that these shinanigans go on will be less inclined if they’re challenged more often.

BarelySentientAI

I noted that the exclusivity period only applies after two actions are completed per R3.1:

1.  The reservation fee is paid - no question, you have done this.
2.  The reservation form is signed - as far as I can tell, this did not happen.

If there is no exclusivity period, then R3.2 does not apply, so they don't have to abide by clause R3.2(b) which is the bit that says they can't sell to someone else.

As with others - I am not a lawyer.

sheramber

tommo84 said:

If there is a solicitor on this forum, or somebody knows someone that can comb over this contract… I’m happy to pay for some legal advice. But time is very much against me.
many thanks everyone 

I don't think anybody on here is going to give you legal advice. only their opinion.

You could try posting on Legal Beagles.

km1500

even if there is a contract the court is extremely unlikely to award what is called 'specific performance' in other words compelling the parties to complete the contract 

what they will do or rather what they are likely to do is if you can show your quantifiable financial losses then they will award them to you

as a simple example - if you find another similar item at another auction which is more expensive than you could claim the difference.

tommo84

Thanks everybody.

I now have a specialist solicitor going over the legal pack tomorrow. So, time will tell. 

If anyone is interested being kept updated then let me know. 

BarelySentientAI

You should certainly let us know - it will help anyone else with the same question in the future.

Kim_13

I was under the impression that the fall of the gavel constituted an exchange of contracts when the reserve had been met - but I am not familiar with modern auctions and whether parties become committed to the transaction at a different point. 

If you had exchanged, it would be unlikely that you’d get the land but instead compensation.

Even if Bamboo turn out to have done nothing wrong, it’s very poor that they haven’t offered a token sum (gesture of goodwill and to cover the loss of interest while the fee was held on your card and earning nothing, and while the money was held by them until the funds cleared back into your account.)

BarelySentientAI

Kim_13 said:

I was under the impression that the fall of the gavel constituted an exchange of contracts when the reserve had been met - but I am not familiar with modern auctions and whether parties become committed to the transaction at a different point. 

If you had exchanged, it would be unlikely that you’d get the land but instead compensation.

Even if Bamboo turn out to have done nothing wrong, it’s very poor that they haven’t offered a token sum (gesture of goodwill and to cover the loss of interest while the fee was held on your card and earning nothing, and while the money was held by them until the funds cleared back into your account.)

"Modern" auctions say that the winning bidder gets a guaranteed exclusive period of time to exchange on the property at the auction price, and they have to pay a fee for that privilege whether or not the sale actually happens.

It seems the question in this instance is whether that period had started (at the fall of the gavel or taking of the fee) or whether the vendor was still allowed to sell it to someone else (because the paperwork wasn't yet completed).

tommo84

Kim_13
I totally agree. (Gesture of goodwill). It’s very poor form. Not even an apology.

tommo84

Update*

After a meeting with my solicitor.
It is of the solicitors opinion that there has been a breach of contract. However, the likely outcome would be near zero of forcing them to adhere to the contract as the land doesn’t belong to me and there has not been an exchange of contract. The likely outcome would be some form of compensation. 

It was never about compensation. We wanted the land to build our “forever home.” 

After weighing up the cost of pursuing this against the outcome. We have decided to put our energy into looking for something else. 

What I would say, is stay away from “modern method auction” 

Thank you all for your help and feedback.