Here's an example, I'm leaving the bull bear arguments aside and put this up for discussion:

I consider myself an honourable person.

In other words, if someone agrees to sell me a property at £X (which is under what its on the market at) and they take the property off the market then, I expect them to honour that promise.

However, if I've just spent a £1000 on fees etc etc and then I find out he has accepted a higher offer, I'm inclined to trump that offer and then get the seller to think he's got more out of me.

Hence, I take him to the day of exchange and instruct my solicitor to only pay and original offer. If I can afford to do this, then why not?

Things to bear in mind, I am not in a chain and as such, do not need to move.

Basically its the principle of the thing.

ooooh I don't like all this. I'm used to the Scottish buying system ( yes I know it has its faults but...) all sounds a bit horrible to me.

Well, if I were a buyer in the Scottish system, having to pay for (possibly) ten lots of survey's (and possibly more) would be pretty horrible to me!

I don't think they should have gone back on their word and obviously still been marketing it on the sly. This was not very nice and I understand you not wanting to lose the property, hence increasing your offer to secure it, but I wouldn't. Have you been dealing with the owners or the agents? I think you should try to cut out the agents and appeal to the good nature of the seller. They might be cold hearted and tell you where to go, if that is the case walk away as your plan for exchange is not wise and you could end up being sued for breech of contract.

I have just lost out on a property to another party and it can be very upsetting (though we have not incurred any fees yet). We can't afford anymore so we are walking away. I am hoping their sale will fall apart and come back to us - the same may happen to you.

HTH

Hi Cutie,

I broadly agree with your seintiments. The example given is where the seller has it advertised via a multi agency deal.

I am wondering if the EA should have phoned the other agents to explain the situation? Because, and let's be honest here, they must all know each other and if one party takes business from another in an underhand way, that's a very slippery slop to go down.

My only take on the matter, is that if we were to lose a thousand quid set up fee, I'm wondering if the seller could be sued for breaking a verbal agreement with the EA, because it was never his intention to take it off the market?

Unfortunately Guzundering or Gazumping is perfectly legal. Not that I agree with either, but in the case illusrated, you get the feeling the guy selling it deserves a bit of under handed tackic played at him because, in the words of the film, they drew first blood.

I understand not doing this tacktic, but (three - four months down the line), the market might be even more shaky than it is currently, hence I'd be than happy to employ such a tactic because of the principle of the thing, if that makes sense?

HTH,

My comment is that you are clearly in a strong position. The seller is in an increasingly weakening position as prices are falling.

At the end of the day you are not committed until the ink is dry on the exchange documents. As a buyer you are free to pull out or make a new offer.

It might cause the seller heart ache and pain, but that may just be heart ache and pain transfered to you if you end up feeling you have overpaid.

Treat this like you would a transaction for buying a car. Don't worry about the salesmen or the seller (if second hand), look at what you want and what you think it is worth. The buyer probably only sees use as a useful conduit for offloading their overpriced property, so try and not be too emotional about it.

Guzundring is unfortunately a feature of our system in a falling market. Funnily enough when I bought a flat a few years ago, the seller tried exactly the same thing to me (ie a gazump), initially I agreed to raise the price, but then threatened to pull out at the last minute if the original price wasn't restored. Funnily enough it worked and that was in a rising market.

Cheers

ML

Well if he does not accept your higher offer for fear of you guzundering him later, I'd send a mate round to trump both offers & then hang the vendor out to dry

Volvos60,

That is a very interesting point you made - ie sending a mate round to make a higher offer.

I wonder how often this happens to help raise prices by preying on vulnerable or emotional buyers?

I am mostly aware of gazundering now, but there do still seem to also be a few case of upward bidding wars going on with good properties.

So my questions:

1) Is it illegal for an agent to tell a prospective buyer that a higher offer has been made when it hasn't?

2) Is it illegal for me to send a mate round (with good credit credentials) and put in a higher offer, forcing the other bidder to up theirs?

This a very similar to the estate agents tactic of oh yes we have had many viewings today. You then the see the property languising on rightmove for months before they reduce the price.

That's the problem isn't it Mike, whether a market is falling rising or stagnant, good properties will always attract interest.

The housing market, as with any market, has good houses and bad houses and mediocre houses.

I personally, would never want to guzunder or guzump, because I feel once a deals been done you should stick to it.

Although I fully understand the rationale as a business case, good houses are hard to come by that's the bottom line.

I have had friends that have suffered from Guzundering and it caused them a lot of financial (and emotional) heartache. It is something that, despite being very tempted to do my self recently, makes buying a house an awful stressful process. I didn't realise the issue was aith a multi agency sale inwhich case you should take this up with the agent you were dealing with.

Getting a friend to make another offer will only result in the offer being agreed with your friend. Unless you want your friend living in the house you like I don't see how this can really help you. Any agreement is made with them, not transferable to you.

Don't annoy the vendor too much with underhand tactics, might backfire. I would sit tight see if the sale proceeds, keep your oroginal offe ron the table and hope that the other peoples chain falls apart.

Fingers crossed.

I would imagine both constitute fraud and are illegal.

The idea being the higher offer from your friend is withdrawn at the last minute, thus the seller has no choice but to accept your lower offer.

Nice

Offers subject to survey are getting more common ( though they agree with a timelimit to get the survey done) and there are a lot more fixed price rather than offers over these days.

Neither system is perfect but they both also have good points.

An acquaintance had a buyer drop their offer at the very last minute recently. But this acquaintance had another interested buyer so they stopped the sale and sold to them instead! Neat!

Buying a house is an emotive subject. Everyone needs to stop looking at the transaction as a personal thing. Its purely a business tractions. You give someone X they give you Y in return.

Imagine you employ an agent (for want of a better title) and instruct him/her what house you want to buy and your top limit for that place then instruct them to get you the best deal for yourself.

Now, what do you think they would do in a falling market to get you their employer the best deal ?

As I said, it's purely a business transaction. Get the best deal for yourself however you can. The sellers/estater agents play by that rule in a rising market.

Stop being nice, think of yourself, everyone else does.

Some people have morals and ethics though don't they and if you go about being too hard nosed any deal you enter into has the chance of falling apart because you'll get other people's backs up.

The other issue to throw into the mix is the fact that different people have different hands so to speak, but also differnet wants.

Take for example some one who loves a particular area and wants his child to go to a particularly good school in a catchment area.

People (usually) put their children first and do everything they can to give them a better life than they had.

So to view buying a house as just a business transaction, perhaps doesn't take into such matters for example.

Not everything in life is black & white.