offer accepted but not taken off market despite request

MissPeachtree

Have had an offer on a house accepted and have asked for the property to be taken off the market, which has been agreed on.  Noticed today, property still being listed with 2 estate agents.  Is there any way to insist on this happening?  We don't want to be in a position of being further down the line and spending money etc to then find someone else has seen it and we get gazumped.  Many thanks

MEM62

Your ultimate sanction is to withdraw your offer.  

Exodi

Sorry, when did you request for the house to be taken off the market? If it was a fortnight ago I can see why you might be frustrated, if it was last night not so.

user1977

As above, listings aren't taken off (or put on) instantly, likely to be something in a pile to be dealt with. So the fact it's still online doesn't necessarily mean they're actively marketing (have you done a "mystery caller" check by phone to the agents?).

Mark_d

When I make an offer on a property I make it conditional upon the seller taking the property off the market.  I also accept an offer on my property first, so that the whole chain can move more quickly.

I don't know why the seller hasn't stopped marketing their property in your case.  Maybe they think they'll get a significantly better offer than yours.  Maybe they think there'll be issues proceeding with you as a buyer...and so that want something to fall back on.

Exodi

Mark_d said:

When I make an offer on a property I make it conditional upon the seller taking the property off the market.  I also accept an offer on my property first, so that the whole chain can move more quickly.

I don't know why the seller hasn't stopped marketing their property in your case.  Maybe they think they'll get a significantly better offer than yours.  Maybe they think there'll be issues proceeding with you as a buyer...and so that want something to fall back on.

Or maybe the OP made their offer on Friday and is irritated it's still up on Tuesday morning.

I don't know whether the OP is a first time buyer, but we regularly see extreme impatience demonstrated by FTB's expecting everything to happen yesterday.

But we can only speculate.

RHemmings

When this happened to me, I asked my solicitor to cease work on the transaction, and told the EAs that I wouldn't proceed with the purchase until the house was fully off the market to my satisfaction. They took it off the market. 

In my case the house remained on the market longer than one and a bit working days. 

Mark_d said:

When I make an offer on a property I make it conditional upon the seller taking the property off the market.  I also accept an offer on my property first, so that the whole chain can move more quickly.

I don't know why the seller hasn't stopped marketing their property in your case.  Maybe they think they'll get a significantly better offer than yours.  Maybe they think there'll be issues proceeding with you as a buyer...and so that want something to fall back on.

It could be the estate agents who have left the property up 'for sale'; it might not be the seller. There are multiple reasons why they might do that. Some have been mentioned: e.g. just not got around to it. Others might be that they want houses in their window so that when people ask about it they can say 'Oh, that one is sold. But, we have this one.' And so on. 

Mark_d

Exodi said:

Mark_d said:

When I make an offer on a property I make it conditional upon the seller taking the property off the market.  I also accept an offer on my property first, so that the whole chain can move more quickly.

I don't know why the seller hasn't stopped marketing their property in your case.  Maybe they think they'll get a significantly better offer than yours.  Maybe they think there'll be issues proceeding with you as a buyer...and so that want something to fall back on.

Or maybe the OP made their offer on Friday and is irritated it's still up on Tuesday morning.

I don't know whether the OP is a first time buyer, but we regularly see extreme impatience demonstrated by FTB's expecting everything to happen yesterday.

But we can only speculate.

I'm not sure there's any point speculating.  The point I want to highlight is that there are a range of reasons why the seller might keep the property on the market.

There are also a number of things buyers can do, to reduce the change of gazumping.

Flugelhorn

has the memorandum of sale been issued? have they had all the necessary paperwork for memo to be sent to solicitors etc?

born_again

MissPeachtree said:

Have had an offer on a house accepted and have asked for the property to be taken off the market, which has been agreed on.  Noticed today, property still being listed with 2 estate agents.  Is there any way to insist on this happening?  We don't want to be in a position of being further down the line and spending money etc to then find someone else has seen it and we get gazumped.  Many thanks

How many was it listed with to start with?

BonaDea

My EA wouldn't take my property off the market until the buyer had instructed a solicitor.  It seems a lot of EAs will keep marketing until some tangible sign of commitment on the buyer's part (instructing solicitor, booking mortgage valuation etc).  Perhaps this EA has a hurdle that you need to jump, why not ask?