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?

I'm so sorry - what horrible people!!

But as PPs have said, it may be for the best in the end.

We accepted a good offer on a second home from our first viewer last September, then on the last business day before the Christmas holidays she pulled out for very vague reasons, very near to exchange. We'd also lost a lovely tenant by then.

It turns out selling would have incurred way bigger CGT costs than we'd ever imagined and we're now selling our main home instead, so she'd inadvertently did us a big favour!

Honestly there's no way I would go ahead now if/when they come crawling back.

Hold the line. Better things are out there for you.

That's unbelievably shitty behaviour from both the seller and the agent. The agent should be saying "it's close to exchange" when they receive any new enquiries and it's greedy and shitty of the seller. Just being a cash buyer doesn't guarantee anything either. We've had a cash buyer mess around and pull out of our house sale recently and we've seen multiple cash buyers do the same round here.

So sorry to hear this, it's devastating, happened to us
We did everything too and the sellers pulled out bc they changed their mind and decided to stay
I wish there was a requirement for either side to pay for the expense incurred should they change their mind

It worked for us. We were gazumped three times. On one particular house I was absolutely gutted. Then a new house came on the market very cheaply for a quick sale - the owners abroad wanted to shift it. And we'd sold by then, and moved into rental so as not to lose our buyers. The new house had a gorgeous view, bigger rooms, a massive kitchen diner and a huge unconverted loft which we turned into two bedrooms. It made the house we'd lost seem like a lucky break.

It was a tough year - and trying to keep our buyers and persuade DH to move into rental with a toddler and tiny baby was not easy. I was really glad we took EA advice to move into rental. It's a gamble as it is money down the drain if you can't find anywhere quickly, but worth considering as it puts you in a strong position to move fast. I learned later that several people had put in higher offers than ours but had no buyers yet so they went with us.

That's unbelievably shitty behaviour from both the seller and the agent. The agent should be saying "it's close to exchange" when they receive any new enquiries

The gazumping buyer could very easily have been someone who viewed the property prior to the OPs offer being accepted.

I doubt the agent wants to start from scratch when they've got a sale close to exchange, even if the price is a little higher, makes very little difference to their commission.

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

@PosiePerkinPootleFlump When I hear things like this, I think sellers should share the cost of structural surveys - or they should be part of the sales package.

We actually discovered that they did actually remarket it, because she frustrated and wanted to see if there were any better options.

These people!!

If the new buyers need a mortgage then they're in for the usual long wait. Our process was no quicker when we were FTBs just less risky because there wasn't another sale that could fall through. I hope karma gets them and they get gazundered.

For what it's worth. We had a purchase fall through. I thought it was our dream house but with hindsight, the one we bought 9 months later was much better. DH was even more disappointed but as soon as we moved in he was in love with the new house and wonders WTF he was thinking with the first.

I exchanged within 6 weeks recently... Granted there was no chain and freehold... It doesn't take much more to get the conveyancing done as most paperwork is now publicly available online (building regs and planning permissions).

Ah! That is very poor form

And they didn't think to tell you so that you could tell your solicitor and surveyor to pause work?!
Terrible behaviour. I'm really sorry this has happened to you.
I thought they had a cash buyer but if the new buyer needs a mortgage, this will take much longer than 2 weeks. Perhaps offer to sell your survey and searches to try to recoup some costs.