being gazumped

merlie

So our first sale before xmas collapsed when the broker handling the new buyers at the bottom of the chained proved incompetant.

With this second attempt all parties were made aware of the fact that an exchange of contracts had to happen before the end of the month.
We accepted an offer and all parties to the deal agreed to this verbally. This includes the solicitors the broker the estate agent and the buyers themselves.
The end of the month is here and the house that we want to buy has a higher offer being put forward.
If we lose the house that we have made an offer on that was accepted with the condition that we exchange bofore the end of the month who can I blame ? Who can I get compensation from ?
Is it too simple to put the entire blame on the estate agent who is the link to all persons involved in the process ? Especially as it was the second time that they are handling the sale.

The expense also includes a retainer we made on the property that we wanted to buy.

merlinthehappypig

Sadly this isn't uncommon and you have no comeback on anyone, for any reason, if the sale goes pear-shaped before exchange of contracts.

This is one of the main failings of the way in which houses are bought and sold in the UK, though Scotland is a little different.

Whilst I can understand how you feel, there is little point in worrying about what has happened or you wasting time, energy and possibly money looking for someone to blame. It is someone's fault, yes, but you have no legal recourse.

I have two pieces of advice. Firstly, move on from this and look forward. It's hard, but you will gain nothing by dwelling on it. Secondly, this doesn't mean that you can't sell your own house. You will find plenty of threads on here about how prices are starting to reduce and how, in many cases, renting for a short while is cheaper than buying.

If you can rent for 6 or 12 months, then buy a similar house for 10% less, then who will have the last laugh?

chappers

Don't know your circumstances but would you consider increasing your offer.

otter1_2

If the vendor wanted the sale done by the end of the month, why are they now happy to wait for a little bit more cash? The offer must be much higher if they are willing to go through the whole process again after previously being so fussy about exchange dates.

And why was the property still being marketed after your offer was accepted? They were asking you to jump through timing hoops, so you were in a strong position to ask for a quid pro quo of them ceasing to market their house.

IveSeenTheLight

What I find interesting is that when many on here are shouting about house price reductions there are still buyers out there and there are still gazumping going on.
I have sympathy for you.
It seems at the moment no-one has a clue whats happening with the market

Nicki

It's horrible when this happens. Been there got the T-shirt.

Has the vendor actually pulled out, or is it just you know another offer has been made and are worried? He may yet do the honourable thing, or prefer the certainty of exchanging quickly with you for less money, then losing the new offer or being gazundered later in a maybe falling market a few months down the line.

You should certainly get your retainer back though if the vendor isn't going to sell the house to you. What were the terms under which it was paid? Was there an exclusivity period agreed? Did your solicitor advise on this? Who is holding the retainer money - solicitor or estate agent?

If the vendor won't sell to you (or if you can't up your offer a bit to get closer to the other one) would you be prepared to recoup some of your losses by selling your searches and survey to the gazumper. I know this might stick in your craw (it would mine) but at least you'd get a lot of what you have paid out back.

Good luck - hope it works out for you. Often when you lose a house, a much nicer or cheaper one comes along a few months later, and once you finally move you forget about the trauma of the one that got away, but it is rotten at the time.

geoffky

some things happen for a reason.........you may look back and thank the good lord

merlie

Thank you all for your comments and support.

The latest is that the mortgage lender should be organising the valuation survey tomorrow. Need to get this turned around ASAP and get the mortgage offer on the table.

The retainer in question comes off the house price at completion... the house we are buying is from a private do-er-upper. We've had our hands on it since November and they wanted some cash to keep them going. Of course this is the house that we're happy with and within budget. If we had to, we could stretch ourselves and possibly up our offer... but we are livid cos I feel the agent should have made much much more of an effort cos they failed last time. It was only cos of our chasing last time that we spotted that there was gonna be a problem. Yet this is their profession. They are paid a fee to get stuff done and if there's a time scale they should do their utmost to ensure it's done ! - sorry having a rant ... the sooner there's a decent web sight for sellers to market thir property themselves the better.

chappers

tell them if they don't exchange with you by the end of next week you want your retainer returned by then.

pinkshoes

chappers wrote: »

tell them if they don't exchange with you by the end of next week you want your retainer returned by then.

And tell them that the interest on the retainer is 20% APR... so you either exchange by Wednesday 6th Feb, or they pay you back the entire retainer fee on that day plus interest from the day they took it.

I'm guessing that they wanted the retainer because they had a cash flow problem, and without it, they wouldn't have been able to complete the property (cash flow problems can be quite common with developers), so pulling out at such a late stage is really cheeky, as if it wasn't for your money, they wouldn't have been able to finish the build.