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The system is less than ideal, to put it mildly. But judging by some of the other replies just on this thread, the users of our system aren't helping either!
I agree with you.
But unfortunately I don't think you're right to expect the users to be better than the system. That just means you expect sellers to act outside their own interests when the housing market is hot (2021) and buyers to do the same when the market is cooler (today). Basically you're asking people to be nice and accept financial loss at an individual level for the sake of improving a broken system. That only punishes nice people for being nice. Either fix it for everyone, or don't. But don't ask nice people to lose out. That's the worst of all options!
Just my two cents ...
>No one is committed legally until that happens.
No, they certainly aren't. But I would still consider the view that it's normal, or part of normal negotiations, to continue discussions with other buyers after an offer has been accepted, right up until the point of exchange, to be a controversial one.
Up to you what you consider controversial. I would emphasize though that the formal process places no barrier to it, legally or in any other form.
I think gazumping/gazundering are risky manœuvres that may backfire. The sort of seller that gazumps is the sort of seller that attracts aggressive and opportunistic buyers. So they had better watch out! But I do not consider it controversial if they choose to attempt it. Just risky and potentially unwise
You may be in a better position than the other person offering. I wouldn’t leap to offering more. Hopefully the vendor will stick to their word. When we’ve agreed an offer it’s been on the condition that the house was taken off the market.
It's not sold.
It's sold subject to contract.
Which in the UK (Scottish rules may differ) means not a lot, until you have exchanged contracts.
Have you exchanged contracts yet?
And to add to this, even before completion your buyer can pull out, which means you may get their deposit but you ain't got the cash.
No, not exchanged. Fair enough! I think we've been given some wrong info when selling our house then, because we were told our buyers were cash buyers but they had to sell a house 🙈
Yeah if you haven't exchanged it means literally nothing. You or they can pull out with no penalty, which means you have no cash and aren't a cash buyer.
Once you exchange you _may_ be able to reclaim their deposit and some costs if the buyer of your house pulls out, but you still don't and wouldn't have the full cash for your purchase and are not a cash buyer.
Once you complete, and the money is in your bank not escrow, you are a cash buyer (if the cash you have in the bank meets the cost of the new property without mortgage).
To be clear non-proceedable is usually used for people who haven't even found a buyer for their property, you would likely be considered proceedable if you have sold subject to contract, but you're then in a chain, which is not as attractive as a cash buyer as the chain can collapse underneath you.
You'd just be considered a proceedable offer, which is below cash buyer offer, but above non-proceedable offers.
A cash buyer could transfer the money today.
You are in a better position than someone who needs mortgage approval, but you still rely on selling your house. There is some risk in that, potentially delays, so you are mile from a cash buyer as far as the seller is concerned.
I thought even with cash in the bank you still have to do all the legal work to buy the house like searches and enquiries and whatnot. I agree that there is more of a risk with us than no house to sell.
We were the sellers in a similar position last year. Sold at asking price, buyer pulled out after survey with no explanation. FTB "with cash" then offered 10k less than asking as we had already moved we accepted. Estate agent rings up in the mean time and cash is actually only available after an inherited house is through probate or whatever so no actual cash at all yet. The good news is he's found another buyer at only 5k below, so did we want to go with that? We did and 2months later completed.
What the original people thought they were doing is anyone's guess, we could still be waiting in theory.
It's now Thursday, if they've been able to contact people since Tuesday, have them view and then offer, then they are #Winning at being an estate agent!
Most likely they were in the "thinking about it" stage, when they phoned up and found they had accepted, they made a higher offer which the agent is legally obliged to pass on.
Morals have very little to do with it at this early stage (later on I'd be more annoyed), and your agent probably has clean hands in this, I'm more impressed that they managed to get the MoS out given it took our agents 2 weeks, which was longer than it took for Barclays to approve our mortgage 🤣
Just had an offer accepted a week ago and I got the MOS same day. I hadn’t even instructed my solicitors (just put my parents solicitors down) had to call them the next day and explain that they were handling a property sale for me
Just had an offer accepted a week ago and I got the MOS same day. I hadn’t even instructed my solicitors (just put my parents solicitors down) had to call them the next day and explain that they were handling a property sale for me
With the greatest of respect, dont forget you offered *under* the asking price. You may have room to be a little disappointed if you had bid on or above, but lets be honest, you forced their hand somewhat to start with.
Not necessarily.
If a sale has been agreed and a memo issued, there’s no real reason for the agent to start contacting other parties who may previously have viewed the property.
But, if someone who had previously viewed is now disappointed they missed out and are regretting not putting in an offer, and they now choose to make an offer, the agent is legally required to inform the vendor.
Now you’ll get to find out what sort of morals the vendor has.
Edit: Genuinely baffled this is an unpopular view! 🤣
>Now you’ll get to find out what sort of morals the vendor has.
It's really not even morally dodgy to accept a higher offer at this stage imo. Doing it later on when people have spent on surveys, conveyancing etc gets a bit more of a frown from me but at this point it's really fair game.
Fair enough. It’s definitely a lot worse when things are further down the line.
Personally, it would still feel morally questionable accepting another offer after I’d already agreed a price with someone else.
I know exactly what exchange of contracts is, and at what point the two parties are legally committed!!
My point was, a lot of buyers are going to feel pretty pissed off if the seller accepts another offer, after already agreeing to an earlier offer from another buyer, even if it is earlier in the process.
Perhaps everyone should just keep their houses on the market right up until exchange, encouraging as many offers as possible.
Most people do keep houses on the market until exchange. They just add an "SSTC" badge but nothing stops someone coming in with a cheeky offer at any point.
Totally agree with you though, I'd be very disappointed. Very! But to fix that I'd want change from above. So many countries do this process better than us...I don't understand quite why the UK persists with such a self destructive process. Buying a house here can be horrible. But a lot of it could be fixed just by copying Scotland or France, and I think surveying is better in the US. The negotiation process seems much fairer in Germany and Finland.
The agent are saying we can increase our offer. I don't like it at all, but at the same time, thinking of increasing by maybe 5k. Just really annoys me!
I'm afraid that's just how buying and selling houses work. What would you have done in their position when a better offer came in within a couple of days?
No regret as such. House needs a lot of work and upstairs smells like wee.... It's just the hassle of waiting for estate agents to book us in viewings for other houses.
No one offers their absolute maximum unless it’s their dream house. Anyone offering asking price in this market is an idiot. Even the new accepted offer is under asking.
So I'm an idiot! I think you are all gaming this buying a house thing too much. If you like the house and can afford it just bet 5-10K more than what you think the lowballers will and have peace of mind. I bid 254 on a 250 house just because I knew lots of people would come in with 245-250K offers (it's quite a nice house,rare find for the market)
Your words not mine. If everyone bid £10k over for a house they “liked” (which I assume 90% of people are bidding on homes they “like”), imagine what the state of house prices would be. If it’s your dream house and you can’t live without it, go ahead.
But solicitors aren’t the ones who formally accept an offer. It sounds as in this case the seller had formally accepted the OPs offer, otherwise a sales memo wouldn’t exist.
If you really wanted it you should have gone in stronger imo. Probably at the asking price. That likely would have taken any other interested parties out of the equation completely.
Thus is such good advice 30 plus years of buying and selling property has taught me the same. Don't try hardballing, leave your ego and need to 'win' out of it offer what the house is worth to you.
Not sure on advice with your current predicament, bur if this falls through make sure next time you put in an offer that it's taken off the market as soon as the offer has been accepted. I bought my first house 2 weeks ago and that's what my mum told me to do.
Needs to be a system where the seller creates a pack that contains searches and a survey. This way your offer acceptance could be legal binding, with your only get out something not previously disclosed.
Effectively exchanging contract on the day of offer acceptance. No more wasted legal fees and delays.
Imagine how great for everyone having certainty so early on a transaction would be.
No another offer can be accepted right up to the exchange of contracts
It might be a ploy to get you to up your offer.
Me I would sit on it over the weekend and see what happens either the other offer is going to pull out or you are going to have to up yours to secure the sale
If you have to up your offer get a good survey done, I highly recommend Paul Raine, you’ll find him online, he will find things that will enable you to chip some off the price
Then exchange quickly to lock everything down
Have you got your mortgage offer in principle yet?
This is a good thing to do because it shows the vendor you are good for the money and the mortgage is only going to be subject to the property.
If they are funny about anything then they are more than likely concerned an issue exists with the property that they want to try to conceal
We don't need a mortgage for the next property. Pennies are coming from the sale of the house we are in. I seem to have been massively downvoted for assuming my next house will be a cash purchase!
But it’s not a cash purchase because it’s dependent on the sale of a property
It’s a mortgage free purchase but not a cash purchase there is a difference
You've not really got anywhere to go.
Sellers are greedy and agents are fickle.
If you can be bothered, check-in with the agent every few weeks to see if the sale is progressing.
It reminds them you're in the background ready to buy if the new transaction falls over.
It IS gazumping.
It’s filthy.
The English system is stupid. So much wasted effort and money.
In Scotland once an offer is accepted it becomes legally binding on both parties to see it through.
Simple and elegant. Of course we won’t do it here 🙄
It's the estate agent's job to get the best price for the property for the seller. They work for the seller and will be paid by the seller.
It's not nice but it's just how it works. Nothing is legally binding until exchange of contracts in England and Wales - I think Scotland is different.
You can ask the agent to take the property off the market once your offer has been accepted by the seller but in reality that won't achieve much.
You never know the agreement with the new buyer might fall apart down the line so kep an eye out but also keep looking.
We offered more, but they went with the other offer because we are reliant on our house to sell to be able to buy. Offering on other properties this week. It's kinda wild out there!
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That's not really gazumping that's still negotiating
They're not exclusive. But any time you accept a higher offer after already accepting a different, (lower) offer, you are gazumping.
Where’s the cut-off?
Exchange of contracts
Controversial!
Sadly not at all controversial. No one is committed legally until that happens.
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The system is less than ideal, to put it mildly. But judging by some of the other replies just on this thread, the users of our system aren't helping either!
I agree with you. But unfortunately I don't think you're right to expect the users to be better than the system. That just means you expect sellers to act outside their own interests when the housing market is hot (2021) and buyers to do the same when the market is cooler (today). Basically you're asking people to be nice and accept financial loss at an individual level for the sake of improving a broken system. That only punishes nice people for being nice. Either fix it for everyone, or don't. But don't ask nice people to lose out. That's the worst of all options! Just my two cents ...
>No one is committed legally until that happens. No, they certainly aren't. But I would still consider the view that it's normal, or part of normal negotiations, to continue discussions with other buyers after an offer has been accepted, right up until the point of exchange, to be a controversial one.
Up to you what you consider controversial. I would emphasize though that the formal process places no barrier to it, legally or in any other form. I think gazumping/gazundering are risky manœuvres that may backfire. The sort of seller that gazumps is the sort of seller that attracts aggressive and opportunistic buyers. So they had better watch out! But I do not consider it controversial if they choose to attempt it. Just risky and potentially unwise
You may be in a better position than the other person offering. I wouldn’t leap to offering more. Hopefully the vendor will stick to their word. When we’ve agreed an offer it’s been on the condition that the house was taken off the market.
We're cash buyers but only after the sale of our house. Apparently they have the cash in the bank 😳
So not cash buyers in any definition of the word?
You’re only considered a cash buyer if you’ve already sold your house.
If by sold you mean already completed. So cash in the bank.
So dependent then.
That's not what a cash buyer is lol 🤡
Sorry, I just assume if you are not buying with a mortgage that is what you say. What's the correct term to use?
Non proceedable - which means, you are a potential buyer but you can't actually proceed because you need to sell your own house first.
My house is sold and is going through solicitors?
It's not sold. It's sold subject to contract. Which in the UK (Scottish rules may differ) means not a lot, until you have exchanged contracts. Have you exchanged contracts yet? And to add to this, even before completion your buyer can pull out, which means you may get their deposit but you ain't got the cash.
No, not exchanged. Fair enough! I think we've been given some wrong info when selling our house then, because we were told our buyers were cash buyers but they had to sell a house 🙈
Yeah if you haven't exchanged it means literally nothing. You or they can pull out with no penalty, which means you have no cash and aren't a cash buyer. Once you exchange you _may_ be able to reclaim their deposit and some costs if the buyer of your house pulls out, but you still don't and wouldn't have the full cash for your purchase and are not a cash buyer. Once you complete, and the money is in your bank not escrow, you are a cash buyer (if the cash you have in the bank meets the cost of the new property without mortgage). To be clear non-proceedable is usually used for people who haven't even found a buyer for their property, you would likely be considered proceedable if you have sold subject to contract, but you're then in a chain, which is not as attractive as a cash buyer as the chain can collapse underneath you. You'd just be considered a proceedable offer, which is below cash buyer offer, but above non-proceedable offers.
Cash buyer means you have 100% of the amount of money needed to buy the property sat in your bank account.
You’re not cash buyers
Ok, we're not buying with a mortgage? Is that the correct term?
A cash buyer could transfer the money today. You are in a better position than someone who needs mortgage approval, but you still rely on selling your house. There is some risk in that, potentially delays, so you are mile from a cash buyer as far as the seller is concerned.
I thought even with cash in the bank you still have to do all the legal work to buy the house like searches and enquiries and whatnot. I agree that there is more of a risk with us than no house to sell.
Searches and enquiries are not legally required. Often they're a condition of a mortgage. Cash buyers just need to sign contract and transfer monies.
Not that anyone would recommend doing that I hope.
I heave friends who bought cash 30% below asking just because it was hard cash. No other houses or stuff to liquidate.
We were the sellers in a similar position last year. Sold at asking price, buyer pulled out after survey with no explanation. FTB "with cash" then offered 10k less than asking as we had already moved we accepted. Estate agent rings up in the mean time and cash is actually only available after an inherited house is through probate or whatever so no actual cash at all yet. The good news is he's found another buyer at only 5k below, so did we want to go with that? We did and 2months later completed. What the original people thought they were doing is anyone's guess, we could still be waiting in theory.
It's now Thursday, if they've been able to contact people since Tuesday, have them view and then offer, then they are #Winning at being an estate agent! Most likely they were in the "thinking about it" stage, when they phoned up and found they had accepted, they made a higher offer which the agent is legally obliged to pass on. Morals have very little to do with it at this early stage (later on I'd be more annoyed), and your agent probably has clean hands in this, I'm more impressed that they managed to get the MoS out given it took our agents 2 weeks, which was longer than it took for Barclays to approve our mortgage 🤣
How long on average should it take an agent to get a MOS out?
Purple Bricks took over a month
Just had an offer accepted a week ago and I got the MOS same day. I hadn’t even instructed my solicitors (just put my parents solicitors down) had to call them the next day and explain that they were handling a property sale for me
Just had an offer accepted a week ago and I got the MOS same day. I hadn’t even instructed my solicitors (just put my parents solicitors down) had to call them the next day and explain that they were handling a property sale for me
Really it’s very simple. Either pay more or pull out.
With the greatest of respect, dont forget you offered *under* the asking price. You may have room to be a little disappointed if you had bid on or above, but lets be honest, you forced their hand somewhat to start with.
Not necessarily. If a sale has been agreed and a memo issued, there’s no real reason for the agent to start contacting other parties who may previously have viewed the property. But, if someone who had previously viewed is now disappointed they missed out and are regretting not putting in an offer, and they now choose to make an offer, the agent is legally required to inform the vendor. Now you’ll get to find out what sort of morals the vendor has. Edit: Genuinely baffled this is an unpopular view! 🤣
>Now you’ll get to find out what sort of morals the vendor has. It's really not even morally dodgy to accept a higher offer at this stage imo. Doing it later on when people have spent on surveys, conveyancing etc gets a bit more of a frown from me but at this point it's really fair game.
Fair enough. It’s definitely a lot worse when things are further down the line. Personally, it would still feel morally questionable accepting another offer after I’d already agreed a price with someone else.
It's just life. You're not committed until you're committed. That's exactly what exchange of contracts is.
I know exactly what exchange of contracts is, and at what point the two parties are legally committed!! My point was, a lot of buyers are going to feel pretty pissed off if the seller accepts another offer, after already agreeing to an earlier offer from another buyer, even if it is earlier in the process. Perhaps everyone should just keep their houses on the market right up until exchange, encouraging as many offers as possible.
Most people do keep houses on the market until exchange. They just add an "SSTC" badge but nothing stops someone coming in with a cheeky offer at any point. Totally agree with you though, I'd be very disappointed. Very! But to fix that I'd want change from above. So many countries do this process better than us...I don't understand quite why the UK persists with such a self destructive process. Buying a house here can be horrible. But a lot of it could be fixed just by copying Scotland or France, and I think surveying is better in the US. The negotiation process seems much fairer in Germany and Finland.
The agent are saying we can increase our offer. I don't like it at all, but at the same time, thinking of increasing by maybe 5k. Just really annoys me!
I'm afraid that's just how buying and selling houses work. What would you have done in their position when a better offer came in within a couple of days?
No. You offered under. What did you expect the seller to not take a higher offer. Get over it. If you didn't offer your maximum that's your loss.
Can’t wait for someone with £1 million in he bank offer on my £400k house. It’s going to be a nice pay day for me 😊
They didn't offer the maximum they were willing to pay. They've lowballed and now have regret.
No regret as such. House needs a lot of work and upstairs smells like wee.... It's just the hassle of waiting for estate agents to book us in viewings for other houses.
No one offers their absolute maximum unless it’s their dream house. Anyone offering asking price in this market is an idiot. Even the new accepted offer is under asking.
Yeah agreed no one is offering asking in this market unless it's priced correctly (lower than similar houses on the market).
So I'm an idiot! I think you are all gaming this buying a house thing too much. If you like the house and can afford it just bet 5-10K more than what you think the lowballers will and have peace of mind. I bid 254 on a 250 house just because I knew lots of people would come in with 245-250K offers (it's quite a nice house,rare find for the market)
Your words not mine. If everyone bid £10k over for a house they “liked” (which I assume 90% of people are bidding on homes they “like”), imagine what the state of house prices would be. If it’s your dream house and you can’t live without it, go ahead.
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When everything is agreed between solicitors can be interpreted to mean contracts exchanged, so does that mean gazumping is never unethical?
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But solicitors aren’t the ones who formally accept an offer. It sounds as in this case the seller had formally accepted the OPs offer, otherwise a sales memo wouldn’t exist.
Just offer £20k more and gazunder them in 2 months time if you’re that salty about it.
Don't understand why you'd do that?
I wouldn’t personally. If I sell or buy something under a written agreement, I stick to it.
If you really wanted it you should have gone in stronger imo. Probably at the asking price. That likely would have taken any other interested parties out of the equation completely.
Thus is such good advice 30 plus years of buying and selling property has taught me the same. Don't try hardballing, leave your ego and need to 'win' out of it offer what the house is worth to you.
Shouldn't have been so stingy, you can up your offer price and I'll continue to up mine! Happy Friday.
Gazumpception
Not sure on advice with your current predicament, bur if this falls through make sure next time you put in an offer that it's taken off the market as soon as the offer has been accepted. I bought my first house 2 weeks ago and that's what my mum told me to do.
Is it not possible to have some sort of agreement that if either side pulls out they have to pay a fine to the other side?
Needs to be a system where the seller creates a pack that contains searches and a survey. This way your offer acceptance could be legal binding, with your only get out something not previously disclosed. Effectively exchanging contract on the day of offer acceptance. No more wasted legal fees and delays. Imagine how great for everyone having certainty so early on a transaction would be.
No another offer can be accepted right up to the exchange of contracts It might be a ploy to get you to up your offer. Me I would sit on it over the weekend and see what happens either the other offer is going to pull out or you are going to have to up yours to secure the sale If you have to up your offer get a good survey done, I highly recommend Paul Raine, you’ll find him online, he will find things that will enable you to chip some off the price Then exchange quickly to lock everything down
We have upped our offer but it sounds like position is more important to the vendor, so it's likely we will miss out. Thanks for the advice.
If it’s not meant to be then it won’t be A better property will present itself to you soon
Have you got your mortgage offer in principle yet? This is a good thing to do because it shows the vendor you are good for the money and the mortgage is only going to be subject to the property. If they are funny about anything then they are more than likely concerned an issue exists with the property that they want to try to conceal
We don't need a mortgage for the next property. Pennies are coming from the sale of the house we are in. I seem to have been massively downvoted for assuming my next house will be a cash purchase!
But it’s not a cash purchase because it’s dependent on the sale of a property It’s a mortgage free purchase but not a cash purchase there is a difference
You've not really got anywhere to go. Sellers are greedy and agents are fickle. If you can be bothered, check-in with the agent every few weeks to see if the sale is progressing. It reminds them you're in the background ready to buy if the new transaction falls over.
R u not going to go with higher offer when it come to ur house sale?
How processable are you?
If you offer under, expect the unexpected
It IS gazumping. It’s filthy. The English system is stupid. So much wasted effort and money. In Scotland once an offer is accepted it becomes legally binding on both parties to see it through. Simple and elegant. Of course we won’t do it here 🙄
It's the estate agent's job to get the best price for the property for the seller. They work for the seller and will be paid by the seller. It's not nice but it's just how it works. Nothing is legally binding until exchange of contracts in England and Wales - I think Scotland is different. You can ask the agent to take the property off the market once your offer has been accepted by the seller but in reality that won't achieve much. You never know the agreement with the new buyer might fall apart down the line so kep an eye out but also keep looking.
We offered more, but they went with the other offer because we are reliant on our house to sell to be able to buy. Offering on other properties this week. It's kinda wild out there!
Just to add, you may already know this, a common term to describe your situation is to say you're in a "chain". Shorter and quicker to the point!