Accepted house bid withdrawn due to higher offer

[HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend]

Inlaws put an offer in for a house and received an email confirmation to advise the offer was accepted....

6 missed calls from estate agents and 2 emails to advise to contact them urgently. Estate agent has advised that the offer is now withdrawn as buyers have received a higher offer.

Inlaws live in England, is this allowed?

Yes. Sadly

Yes, it's allowed.

Yes. It's gazumping and it's legal until contracts are exchanged.

It sounds as though no contracts have been sent out at this stage. We bought a house years ago and having completed and moved in had a visitor chasing exchange of contracts with the previous owners. There were several contracts sent out!

Allowed in english system. Still shitty though.

ah, once an offer has been accepted in Scotland it's legally binding.

I had no idea English laws were different even though I have bought 3 houses in England...

FYI an accepted offer in Scotland doesn’t mean you can’t pull out, this is a myth.

@Em308

FYI an accepted offer in Scotland doesn’t mean you can’t pull out, this is a myth.

There's a difference between pulling out and "gazumping".

Yes you can pull out of the sale completely, what you can't do however is accept a better offer with the same solicitor/estate agent after they verbally accepted an offer on your behalf as they have to follow the Law Society of Scotland’s anti-gazumping guidelines.

If you DO want to accept a further offer after verbal acceptance, you have to fire your current solicitor and appoint another which may result in a cost to the seller.