Verbal Offer agreed but changed at the last minute, what are my rights.

HouseHunter2026

Good Morning,

We were in the process of negotiating for the purchase of a new house. We were going to use the House builders part-exchange scheme. They offered us £290K for our house initially. We turned this down and they came back with a £295k offer. Again, we turned this down. Then they called and said that they could do £300K. We were delighted and verbally agreed. We put in a call to reserve the house the very next day at 11.30am. At 11.00am they called and retracted to £300k offer. We asked to speak to a senior manager and asked for the reason. We believed we were still in negotiation with the Housebuilder. However, the very next day the Housebuilder advised that they had now agreed with another family to buy the house. Obviously we were devastated. I just wondered if we had any rights at all. We still haven't heard from the senior manager and they have not responded to any emails I have sent them. I also found out that the estate agent valued our house at between 305k and 325K so potentially a private sale would have been better anyway.

user1977

Rights to do what? You simply cannot have a verbal contract to buy/sell property, you were negotiating.

twopenny

Personally I would leave it. If you agrivate the builder you may find a lot of snagging included.

Was the negotiating entirely by phone call? Nothing on email?

elsien

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81911849#Comment_81911849

doesn’t matter whether verbally or email or anything else. There’s nothing binding until contracts are exchanged.

Woodstok2000

Part exchange will almost always be below market value - you're paying for the convenience, and the fact that the housebuilder will be hoping to make a bit of money (and at the very least not make a loss).

HouseHunter2026

Thanks guys, there are certain codes of conduct that have to be followed and one does say that Housebuilders can't/shouldn't negotiate with another party once you've entered the negotiating stage with another. However, we did think that if they were prepared to do this to us 30minutes before signing, what else will happen along the way. We were a little uneasy at the Part Exchange deal as well, two local independent estate agents valued our property at 300K+ and another working on behalf of the builder valued it much lower. Probably dodged a bullet!

monkey-fingers

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81911880#Comment_81911880

Could you link us up to those codes of conduct?
I can't find them anywhere on the major homebuilders CoC website.

It's a common thing that part-ex and homebuying companies do. Often the day before exchange.

Albermarle

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81911880#Comment_81911880

When buying a new house, it is often difficult coordinating the purchase of the new property and the sale of your house.

The new house often gets delayed and then the builder wants to exchange contracts at very short notice. Plus of course selling your own house is an unpredictable process. Regular threads on here from people in a difficult situation.

Part exchange solves these problems and is probably worth the lower price you get, as long as it is not that big a difference.

RelievedSheff

You never get full market value with part exchange.

You will always end up getting good more with a private sale but then you have achain to contend with.

Part exchange is convenient but not the best way to achieve the most for your property.

gazfocus

I don't understand why you'd feel 'uneasy' about the part exchange deal because of the builder offering you below the other valuations you had from estate agents. A couple of things worth bearing in mind for future…

1. Estate agents will always value your house a bit higher - they want to win your listing so there are going to give an attractive listing price to get your signature on their contract.
2. House Builders/Developers aren't buying part exchanges just to help you, they are doing so to make some money and the only way they'll do that is by buying your house for just below the market rate.
3. If you've had valuations at £305k and £325k, you can almost certainly guarantee that potential offers will come in lower than those figures as that's the 'game'.

To be fair, I actually think the developers offer at £295-£300k was very fair but obviously I don't know what you 'need' in order to be able to buy the house you want. Gutted for you that you lost the house you wanted, but it's just a case of move on and see what else takes your fancy unfortunately.

user1977

House Builders/Developers aren't buying part exchanges just to help you, they are doing so to make some money and the only way they'll do that is by buying your house for just below the market rate.

My (admittedly anecdotal) experience is that the P/E valuations are usually fair, they're making their profit on the inflated price for the new house rather than aiming to make anything on the sale of the part-exchanged one..