Can estate agents withhold offers from vendors?

[lecce]

Just that really. I know they are legally obliged to pass on all offers, but do they have to do so at once or can they contact people who have previously offered and give them the chance to raise their offer before the vendors are informed of the new offer, thereby stimulating a bidding war?

This is happening to us and now dh has gone all huffy and says he doesn't want to be manipulated by shady people he doesn't trust. He wants to walk away from the whole thing and I do see his point but, on the other hand, we could be losing a great home for the sake of a measly couple of grand. (We can't afford to throw money away, but I think when you're planning to stay somewhere for the next 20 odd years, you need to put the figures in perspective.)

and .

I was just looking at your other thread to ask what had happened today!

So what has the agent said to you?

I think it most likely that he will have passed the offer to the vendor and advised the vendor to wait untill he hassles contacts the other people to see if they will be going any higher, before deciding to accept your offer or not.

Have you got an appointment to see the other house?

Yes, think something like that is going on. Agent didn't even mention how our latest offer was received by the vendor and it even occured to me that she hasn't passed it on at all but I am probably being paranoid .

She just said that the other offer is near the asking price and that she wanted to give us the chance to go higher before she passed the other offer on - how kind .

Have phoned the agent of house 2 twice but they haven't been able to contact the vendor yet to arrange a viewing. Really hating this!

Settle on your price. What is the house worth to you? And say that is that, take it or leave it. I hate being messed around too.

You will never really know if the other offer is as the agent tells you. Some are more honorable than others. The only thing you can do is as only4 said and set your max price and stick to it. If you get it great, if you don't there will be another.

And as you are already having slight second thoughts, think about that offer very hard. Do your research on sold prices on zoopla and rightmove, and of course be aware of what you are happy to pay mortgage wise. Even one or two thousand makes a difference.

We had exactly the same conversation with EA last month. Apparently there were 2 offers very similar and the vendor had said whoever came back with the best by the end of the day would get the property. We thanked them very much and said regretfully we'd have to step out but please let us know if the sale fell through with the other buyer.

Our original offer was accepted within 2 hours.