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Nantwich
Posts: 1 Newbie
My partner and I are in the middle of horrible experience trying to buy our first flat together in London through a Bairstow and Eaves estate agent.
The flat was on the market for a guide price of 280K. We offered 270K and in the meantime the estate agent persuaded us to go in and see their in house mortgage broker with 3 months payslips, proof of deposit etc. Fine, we thought. Then the agent started phoning my partner several times a day trying to find out if we would sign up for their in house mortgage service. We didn't want to as we had a mortgage broker already - that was fee free - and the agency one had a limited portfolio + charged fees. Then the agent started to threaten us. He explicitly told us it was a deal breaker if we chose not to go with them for a mortgage.
In the meantime we were outbid and were asked for our best and final offer. We bid 275K and the vendors accepted. We were elated and applied for our mortgage, appointed our solicitor and were ready to get everything on the road. The agent told us that the other buyer offered more than us but we were their favourite (probably BS but why say it?).
Two days later, we were gazumped by the other buyer - despite them having also placed their best and final offer. They offered 280K and the agent phoned to tell us. We wanted to match their offer but had to argue with the agent to persuade him to present our offer to the vendors. We assumed that as were matching the other buyer's offer, and because they had already accepted our first offer, that they would then go for us.
Next we find out that the vendors have now accepted the other offer of 280K despite this being the same amount that we were now offering. We couldn't understand this and the agent told us it was because the other buyer had a bigger deposit. Our deposit was 80K.
Has anyone else had an experience of being gazumped, matching the gazumper's offer and the vendor still going with the gazumper? The vendors seemed very nice when we viewed the property so we really cannot understand this and can't help feeling that the agent sabotaged our offer because we refused to go with the in house mortgage advisor.
We have now gazumped the gazumper and offered 285K but won't go any higher than that. We're awaiting news.
Would love to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this situation from their experiences. The threats, followed by the strange change of heart by the vendors are baffling us - not to mention being extremely stressful and traumatic.
Thank you!
NB
The flat was on the market for a guide price of 280K. We offered 270K and in the meantime the estate agent persuaded us to go in and see their in house mortgage broker with 3 months payslips, proof of deposit etc. Fine, we thought. Then the agent started phoning my partner several times a day trying to find out if we would sign up for their in house mortgage service. We didn't want to as we had a mortgage broker already - that was fee free - and the agency one had a limited portfolio + charged fees. Then the agent started to threaten us. He explicitly told us it was a deal breaker if we chose not to go with them for a mortgage.
In the meantime we were outbid and were asked for our best and final offer. We bid 275K and the vendors accepted. We were elated and applied for our mortgage, appointed our solicitor and were ready to get everything on the road. The agent told us that the other buyer offered more than us but we were their favourite (probably BS but why say it?).
Two days later, we were gazumped by the other buyer - despite them having also placed their best and final offer. They offered 280K and the agent phoned to tell us. We wanted to match their offer but had to argue with the agent to persuade him to present our offer to the vendors. We assumed that as were matching the other buyer's offer, and because they had already accepted our first offer, that they would then go for us.
Next we find out that the vendors have now accepted the other offer of 280K despite this being the same amount that we were now offering. We couldn't understand this and the agent told us it was because the other buyer had a bigger deposit. Our deposit was 80K.
Has anyone else had an experience of being gazumped, matching the gazumper's offer and the vendor still going with the gazumper? The vendors seemed very nice when we viewed the property so we really cannot understand this and can't help feeling that the agent sabotaged our offer because we refused to go with the in house mortgage advisor.
We have now gazumped the gazumper and offered 285K but won't go any higher than that. We're awaiting news.
Would love to hear if anyone has any thoughts on this situation from their experiences. The threats, followed by the strange change of heart by the vendors are baffling us - not to mention being extremely stressful and traumatic.
Thank you!
NB
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Comments
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Bairstow Eves have often been referred to by another rather cruder name for decades due to underhand tactics ('b***ard thieves'). (Not claiming anything, just letting you know...). Can't say I'd be surprised. Thought they'd clamped down on it more as their reputation in the '80s and later wasn't great at all. Maybe not. Maybe it's even the truth and there is another couple and they have bid that much and the vendors have dumped you for them. tbh, whoever's at fault, I'd have walked - wouldn't want to deal with either of them.
Unless you can find out from the vendors exactly what they have said about you, I don't think you have any evidence or a leg to stand on.
It happens that the sneakier EAs to say things like 'this couple are far more favourable as we've had them verified and we have reason to believe that the others are flakey/timewasters/whatever.' Who knows if BE fall into this category.
If it's any consolation, if you lose it, there will be others, although it won't feel like it now. And at least you know which EA to be wary of, if not to avoid completely.
Chances are by going that far over, it may end up being downvalued anyway! Market's a tad wobbly at the mo.
Is it Essex?
Good luck.2023 wins: *must start comping again!*0 -
"Two days later" isn't really gazumping; it's just continued negotiations. If the offers are the same and the others have a higher deposit, why wouldn't they go with them? There's nothing that odd about this.0
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ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »"Two days later" isn't really gazumping; it's just continued negotiations. If the offers are the same and the others have a higher deposit, why wouldn't they go with them? There's nothing that odd about this.
They had accepted their offer. Some (me included) might consider it rude and ungentlemanly. Each to their own though, we don't all agree on this - it's come up many times before.2023 wins: *must start comping again!*0 -
It does sound like the message being passed to the sellers might well have been slanted in favour of the other buyer - esp if they were using the inhouse mortgage broker perhaps.....
Only way to find out would be to write or speak to the seller direct.0 -
+1 for going direct to the sellers. You have nothing to lose. Sometimes it isn't the vendor, as ours didn't want a gazump for personal reasons, but the agent still tried.....and for what? Pride I think. We didn't fall for his other tactics.
I believe Bairstow Eves is a franchising name .
We only once viewed through them, and the seller was so unhinged, it proved one of the funniest and most surreal experiences of my life. My teenage daughter had to leave the viewing, rather than wet herself through continuously restrained laughter.
When I complained to the manager of the branch by letter, saying he'd ducked-out of the viewing because he was a coward and a cad, he 'phoned and declared we'd been 'blacklisted.'
The branch closed down shortly afterwards. I'd no idea the name was still being used. Not around here....0 -
They had accepted their offer. Some (me included) might consider it rude and ungentlemanly. Each to their own though, we don't all agree on this - it's come up many times before.
Rude and ungentlemanly maybe, but not gazumping and not unusual. Gazumping really only applies to sudden offers further down the line.0 -
+1 for going direct to the sellers. You have nothing to lose. Sometimes it isn't the vendor, as ours didn't want a gazump for personal reasons, but the agent still tried.....and for what? Pride I think. We didn't fall for his other tactics.
I believe Bairstow Eves is a franchising name .
We only once viewed through them, and the seller was so unhinged, it proved one of the funniest and most surreal experiences of my life. My teenage daughter had to leave the viewing, rather than wet herself through continuously restrained laughter.
When I complained to the manager of the branch by letter, saying he'd ducked-out of the viewing because he was a coward and a cad, he 'phoned and declared we'd been 'blacklisted.'
The branch closed down shortly afterwards. I'd no idea the name was still being used. Not around here....
Come on Dave, you can't leave us hanging wondering what this viewing was about. New thread please with details :rotfl:Make £2024 in 2024
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Far too long, but it was a plant nursery wih a self-build house and no stock that was actually alive or in a fit state to sell. The owner had draped huge swathes of fleece over the benches, under which he claimed there were plants, but there was nothing there.Come on Dave, you can't leave us hanging wondering what this viewing was about. New thread please with details :rotfl:
He kept running to the windows to check for customers, "because it gets really busy about now." It was obvious to us that no one who'd been there before was going to call. The whole viewing was like a sketch from Monty Python.
The house was a disaster, but we've all seen self-builds that have gone a bit wrong....This was almost unretrievable.
The site, underneath all the rubbish and weeds, was brilliant.
I'm pleased to say it sold later at a reduced price to a couple of people I knew of, who were on the shady side of the business, and I don't mean plants for less sunny areas. They brought it back from the brink, but didn't do well. It's now in family ownership and seems to be earning them a healthy living; not that anyone running a small garden centre makes a fortune.0
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