Gazumping

[Gully]

Scottish system is better in some respects, applies to most properties where it is offers over, that is to say there is a starting figure and interested parties submit an offer in the form of a sealed bid. There is good and bad to that, on the downside for the buyer it can mean they pay an over inflated price for a property and haven't a clue what anyone else is bidding, but on the upside it should stop gazumping or people arse-ing around as described above.

 

[Gully]

What I was going to mention was what happened when I bought my first house, back in the doom and gloom days of the early 90's. At that time the property market was completely in the doldrums, I was looking for a house over the space of a year and watched the prices falling, then made my move when I believed that they had bottomed out.

I put in an offer on a house, then had the surveys done which highlighted a number of concerns (the roof needed serious attention and subsequently had to be replaced completely), I then went back with a lower bid which the vendor accepted. Everything was going along swimmingly, until I walked past the house and saw that the sold sign had been replaced with an auctioneers board. Unbeknown to me the vendor had decided to put the house up for auction, not sure of the legality of that move as they had already accepted an offer.

So, I trogged off to the auction where I bid on the house but it failed to reach its reserve. To cut a long story short, I spoke with the auctioneer and told him that my latest offer still stood if the vendor was interested. Fortunately he was and the following day, after a lot of worry on my part, the offer was accepted. Anything that could be done to make offers and acceptance legally binding would be a step forward in my opinion, saving plenty of heart-ache and ending gazumping.

 

[Seagull Stew]

What I was going to mention was what happened when I bought my first house, back in the doom and gloom days of the early 90's. At that time the property market was completely in the doldrums, I was looking for a house over the space of a year and watched the prices falling, then made my move when I believed that they had bottomed out.

I put in an offer on a house, then had the surveys done which highlighted a number of concerns (the roof needed serious attention and subsequently had to be replaced completely), I then went back with a lower bid which the vendor accepted. Everything was going along swimmingly, until I walked past the house and saw that the sold sign had been replaced with an auctioneers board. Unbeknown to me the vendor had decided to put the house up for auction, not sure of the legality of that move as they had already accepted an offer.

So, I trogged off to the auction where I bid on the house but it failed to reach its reserve. To cut a long story short, I spoke with the auctioneer and told him that my latest offer still stood if the vendor was interested. Fortunately he was and the following day, after a lot of worry on my part, the offer was accepted. Anything that could be done to make offers and acceptance legally binding would be a step forward in my opinion, saving plenty of heart-ache and ending gazumping.

But on the other hand, you put in an offer and then lowered your asking price!

Survey or not, surely then the seller was well within his rights to try to make the money that you had offered in the first place. Who's to say he did not turn down higher offers because you had agreed a price.

It's not just buyers who lose out to gazzumping. I am currently trying to sell a property myself and have had two developers pull out after making an offer because they decided to go for another project. But you hardly ever hear about the seller's scenario do you?

Swings and roundabouts in my opinion and until contracts are exchanged then either side is well within their rights to pull out. Buyers included. Not saying it's right, just saying the facts!

 

[Gully]

I did, but my initial offer was conditional on the results of the survey, what I failed to mention was that after this an additional offer was received which was higher than my original one. I then upped my offer, still subject to the survey, it was this one that I reduced when it was realised how much work the property needed. I had my suspicions that the second party was an imaginary one, so in effect they tried to gazump me, but in the end it all worked out.

 

[Lokki 7]

Still, you have my sympathies also. There's nothing worse than being Gazumped, especially if you've paid out for fees.

I reckon having your eyes cut out with a scalpel and then having large pickled onions inserted into the cavities would be worse. I hate pickled onions.