Been gazumped - tell me it will all work out for the best?

[Iwannabelessfat]

Just found out we’ve been gazumped. We’ve spent thousands on the survey, searches and solicitors fees. Offer accepted 3 months ago and just working through the last of the enquiries on both sides. They’ve got a higher offer from a buyer with nothing to sell who reckons they’ll be exchanging in record time. We should have been exchanging in the next couple of weeks.

keep thinking it will be OK, it wasn’t meant to be etc. please tell me about when this happened to you and all was OK?

If you really liked the house and have spent a significant sum, I would be the bigger person and let them know that should the sale fall through, you would still be willing to proceed.

If the sale does go through, feel free to abuse them and call them a knob with bells on! 😖

Wow!!! The sellers are utter arseholes!!!! Let's hope the house gods treat them to a dose of Karma!!

Id at least request the survey cost to be paid by the seller as a goodwill gesture but wouldn't hold out much hope.
It's so so shit but you will find something else!

What a shitty thing to do

House stuff always works out for the best. When you're settled in a few months you'll be glad to be where you are. I appreciate not much help to you right now though- you've had a horrible time. Remember better times are coming though

It shouldn't be legal to do that. I'm sorry Op

Sorry OP. This sort of started to happen to us. A week before exchange DP got a property alert on his phone... for the property we were buying. They'd put it back on the market for 20k more. Didn't warn us whatsoever.

I contacted the sellers straightaway who basically said they'd realised they'd undervalued it and thought we'd been too slow (we hadn't, we were pushing the solicitor constantly) so they wanted a different buyer.

We really wanted it and had had a good deal to be fair so I pacified them and ended up having to offer more money but we got it in the end.

I just couldn't believe this sort of thing was allowed.

That's awful. It happened to us 30 years ago, and I still haven't fully forgiven either the sellers or the gazumpers. I was eight months pregnant at the time, desperate to move, and of course we lost our buyer. Later on I used to see Gazump Woman at the school gates, but I always ignored her on principle.

However, my tale of woe does have a happy ending. A year later, another house came up on the same street. House wasn't quite as large, but it had a conservatory and a bigger, nicer, less overlooked garden. Everything went through perfectly that time.

Lying awake thinking about it all.

Im secretly hoping it all falls through and when they come crawling back we can gazump them! Not something I would ever do but my emotions are getting the better of me I think.

We had sorted schools and nurseries and everything, and our lovely buyer has spent all the money on doing their stuff too. What a joke the system is in this country!

I’ve got to say there’s a strong chance it’s either BS or the sale will fall through.

its not the sort of climate where it’s so positive out there that people are getting carried away paying too much for piles of bricks - unless it was truly exceptional.

It probably wasn’t meant to be. I think we’re due a massive correction anyway.

That's just awful. Horrible to do this when you are just about to exchange and have planned your whole lives around the move.
I'm sure it will work out for you in time but that's probably not much comfort to you right now. There's also a good chance they will come crawling back to you and then you can decide if you still want to proceed but with 5% off what you agreed.

If they'd do it to you now, they'd do it the day before exchange too (in a quest for more money, no doubt).

Get yourself back on to the EA today and see what they have coming up on their books, or even consider a rental in the new area so you can still fulfil the school/nursery places.

It's truly fucking awful.

Oh definetly this!! If they do come back, tell them your offer has dropped.

What horrible thing to do.
I imagine it’s a cash buyer (developer) - because who else would aggressively offer on a house almost at exchange - who will drop their offer considerably when they are almost at exchange. It’s a tactic they use.

The sellers deserve everything they get.

I’m sorry OP. We had two purchases fall through though not the same reason. One of them decided not to sell because of issues with the survey on the house she was buying and the other decided that dear old Mumsy would find moving too stressful (surely you’d consider that before moving forward with a sale)

I’m so sorry OP! Shouldn’t be allowed honestly.

Next time make it a condition of your offer that they take the house off the market.

Would we be a holes for doing this? I guess all is fair in love and war right?

@user1471505356 most people do this, it does't mean anything though? Until contracts are exchanged people can do what they like or sell to whoever, regardless of what conditions you've stipulated on your offer. Such is our broken system in the UK!

Is it possible to sue them to recover your costs?

What if it was someone who saw the property before the OPs offer was agreed?

It would be highly unusual for the property to be continued to be marketed after the OPs offer was accepted.

It’s horrible, the system is so cruel and unfair. I do hope Karma get them.
In the meantime can you sell them searchers / surveys at least to cut your immediate financial losses?

This is horrendous, OP. I don't know how people can go about things like this and justify it to themselves. I really hope things work out well for you.

Not at all. They have mucked you around at the last minute, knowing that you have a family to arrange things for too.
Obviously, they may not come back to you but, if they do, you would just be stating your terms given the changes instigated by them. Of course, you may have already changed your mind or found somewhere else anyway.

This happened to me several years ago. By coincidence ended up buying a cheaper house on the same road.

The house we bought needed more work but in the end whilst less 'grand' looking the layout works better for us where we are. And we are in a better overall financial position for not spending as much, meaning earlier retirement etc.

But yes at the time I was really pissed off, especially as I had had a full structural survey 2 days beforehand 😭