Am I being played by vendor/agent?

[Bleambx]

We had a 5% under asking price (in line with recent sales in area) offer accepted on a property yesterday. However vendor is a liquidation company and are refusing to take the property off the market until exchange. Estate agent promised us (lol, all know they’re liars) they won’t be actively marketing the property but it will stay on website and we need to get ducks in a row asap to show we’re committed - which we’ve done.

Low and behold today the agent has upgraded the Rightmove listing to a premium one and switched the photos around - assume to look more appealing. Seems like actively marketing to me?

Posting this to hear other’s views on what they’d do. Do we pull out? Call their bluff? Carry on because we love the property? Feel like my heart is in too much to think rationally so hearing others thoughts might help.

For context: we’re in a short chain with FTB on our side, solicitors on the case as soon as our offer was accepted. The market where we are is completely stalemate with next to no movement. Property is in the higher/premium price bracket for our area. It’s been on for a month and only us and 2 other uninterested parties have viewed the property.

If an agent has already got a sale running, there’s a strong argument to say they’re not going to be interested in getting another offer for the same house. They still only get one fee.

far better to concentrate on selling other houses which don’t have a buyer proceeding on them.

If by liquidation company you mean a firm that deals with properties that have been repossessed obo of banks, it is relatively common practice to not remove the listing until exchange. But in reality the agent isn’t really interested in getting another offer that’s a few £x higher.

Thanks for this! This was my kinda thinking and agent seemed like they were sure they weren’t going to go after other interest but the Rightmove thing stumped me.

it’s a weird situation, not a repossession but previous owner owned their house via their business which went under so liquidating assets to pay off debt I’d assume.

As much as I don't trust EAs with anything, the Premium thing is prob not too much to worry about - I think these things can be automatically set up well in advance (they'll just like rotate each property week by week in an automatic process) and/or part of the deal they've struck in delivering a certain package level for the vendor (ie to get X percent commission, they have to have shown having had a premium listing')

It may well be that they are obliged to keep it advertised as proof that they tried to get the most the market would offer.