Would this be gazumping? Wwyd?

[TheotherMissHoolie]

Viewed a house a month ago, loved it and put in an offer, but vendors went for a lower cash offer. Fair enough. However, it has become apparent that the estate agent 'misrepresented' our position and told the vendors we weren't immediately proceedable. Would you approach the vendors with the correct details and another offer?

What is your position?
The cash buyer may have been willing to forego searches/survey/any of the legal work but a Transfer form.

How do you know that the EA has done that? I believe you, they can be unscrupulous, but just wanted to see how you found out. That may inform how you deal with it

No, because they've already accepted an offer from someone else which is now going through.

On what grounds did the agent do that?

Because what would the agents motivation be for not putting forward a HIGHER offer properly

if the vendors accept your higher offer over one already accepted then yes gazumping

By now, they’ll be well into the process with a cash buyer. They won’t go for it OP.

How did you find out the estate agent misrepresented you? Why would they do that? Seems odd.

Just seen they were a cash buyer!!

Unless your offer was water tight and very substantially % higher

Then I would always go for the cash buyer

I would think you would still be less proceedable than a cash buyer. The seller may want things done as fast as possible so upping an offer that still needs to go through a mortgage valuation or wait for another sale to go through might not be something they would go for.

I'd let it go, and keep looking. How would you feel if you were the buyer and someone did that to you? A month is a long time later, they've probably paid for searches by now, picked out their furniture, etc.

That said, there's nothing wrong with asking the estate agent to let you know if the sale did fall through, and then you can get a second chance :)

Thanks for the comments. Our initial offer was 3 percent above the cash offer. We were prepared to put a final offer of 7 percent above, but there was no negotiation. We emailed our offer, no response from ea, I called to make sure they had received it, then called 2 days later to find out that the cash offer had been accepted. Our final offer would have been 70 percent cash, 30 percent mortgage, so low ltv required on the borrowing and fully flexible on timing as we are renting. We bumped into the vendors yesterday after viewing another (unsuitable) property on their road. They wanted to quiz us on our original offer because they feel they were pressurised into accepting the cash offer as they are also buying through same ea. Estate agent gave them a verbal summary of the offers, so they hadn't seen our email. I don't know what the ea would get from it, apart from an easy sale?

Could well have been a mate of the estate agent with the cash buyer, we had this a couple of times buying our house where they misrepresented our offer and the house eventually sold for lower money. I think I'd drop them a note through the door asking for further details and saying you're uncomfortable gazumping normally but the situation is a bit suspicious.

If you bumped into the vendors yesterday, what did they say when you told them about your offer?

I would pop a written offer through the door of the vendors and let them take it from there

Estate agents always want an easy sale. If you love the house, I’d knock on the door and have a proper chat with the vendors in person.

Vendors fuming with ea, so we're tempted to put a note in their door. But it is a month into the process, and obviously they don't know how committed we would be. And I don't really want a drama. House buying is stressful enough! Will have a think. Thanks all.

Yes, it’d be straightforward gazumping.

@TheotherMissHoolie

Vendors fuming with ea, so we're tempted to put a note in their door. But it is a month into the process, and obviously they don't know how committed we would be. And I don't really want a drama. House buying is stressful enough! Will have a think. Thanks all.

Confused

How do the vendors know you were misrepresented?

And how do you know they’re fuming?!

You have absolutely no idea why the vendors chose the other offer. Or even what the offer was.

Their decision probably had everything to do with the vendors own circumstances and nothing at all to do with yours. They had that right.

It's not gazumping. you don't have a leg to stand on, walk away.

Surely a month in, the cash buyers will be close to exchanging?

Also, it doesn’t matter how much your mortgage is or isn’t, you are either a cash buyer or you aren’t. It’s possible the cash buyer is a more traditional one in the sense they don’t even need to sell to have the funds to buy.

And yes, you would be gazumping. Not all EA look to get potential buyers to increase their offers and your opportunity to do so was immediately you found out the other buyer’s offer was accepted and not a month later.

Because they asked us about the details of our offer and told us what the ea had told them of our offer! And they told us they were fuming -- that's how we know!

If you want to go ahead, I would make sure the vendors know that you are still interested. I wouldn't expect them to swap to you but if anything goes wrong with the current off....

No need to hide it from the EA, who will be due their commission whichever of you actually completes on the sale.