House Under Offer - How to deal with EA

[Jazzy1987]

I am a FTB so not experienced in the property market. I viewed a house two weeks ago which went under offer last week whilst I was on a family holiday. Whilst away my DH and I discussed our options a lot and decided that we really wanted to offer on the property.

I would like to call the EA to discuss the property but I am not sure how to approach that discussion. Could someone please advise on best tactics / strategy for the call?
Does ‘under offer’ mean that I cannot make an offer now? And will the estate agent advise me on how much has been offered on the property?

Thanks in advance for any help / advice that you can provide.

'Under Offer' means the same as 'Sold Subject to Contract' (STC). So an offer has been accepted by the seller and the buyer will now proceed to organise searches and survey and so on.

As far as I am aware, it is not illegal to put in your own offer on a house that is already sold - neither party is committed until contracts are exchanged. Really it's more a question of whether you could sit comfortably with the idea of potentially gazumping in order to acquire the property. I doubt that the EA would tell you the amount of the offer, but they might use your interest in the property to motivate the existing buyer.

If you are going to do it, I'd suggest doing it quickly. The other buyer will have started to incur legal costs and these will mount up as the sale progresses. Personally, I wouldn't do it. Are there not similar properties still on the market that you could view?

It's shitty behaviour to try and outdo someone else's accepted offer. Look for another house to buy.

Ok I hadn’t realised that under offer meant offer accepted. I was thinking there had been an offer on the table which is under consideration rather than an accepted offer is on the table. As mentioned I am a FTB so all a learning experience.

I had a similar situation recently. I could have offered more but l accepted it wasn't meant to be and moved on. The likely outcome is the current buyer will up their offer and only the vendor will benefit.

Also don't forget what goes around comes around.

As a PP has mentioned, the property has been sold subject to contract so it would be unethical to get involved at this stage. However, what you could do without upsetting anyone would be explain to the EA that you would have been interested in making an offer if the house hadn't already sold, so could they let you know if the sale breaks down for any reason.

My mum accepted an offer on my grandads house then 2 days later was offered 50k more so she unfortunately had to let down the initial purchasers because they couldn't up their offer. I'm not sure if she would have done this if they had been further down the line tbh. So you can do it, but unless it's a sizeable amount more I doubt they'll accept it. Also I assume the EA didn't tell my mums new purchasers what the offer already accepted was or they wouldn't have offered so much over!

She didn't 'have' to accept that offer. She chose to gazump the original buyers.

I wonder how many people could honestly say they wouldn't do the same..

It’s a bloody stupid term, because I’ve seen some estate agents use it to mean “an offer has been made but not yet accepted”. Very occasionally, I see a listing that says something along the lines of , “we have received an offer of £125,000 for this property. Anyone else wishing to make an offer should contact us ASAP”.

I would assume the property is SSTC, but would phone the estate agent to check.

I would definitely call them and ask to be kept informed if the situation changes. Sales fall through all the time.

I don't think that is true. Under offer means the offer is in and being considered. It's a step before SSTC.

Under Offer means get in there and make your best offer if you really want it.

@XVGN , IME the terms are used interchangeably. This from the Homeowners Alliance seems to confirm it:

https://hoa.org.uk/advice/guides-for-homeowners/i-am-buying/what-does-sstc-mean/

They quote the Property Ombudsman, so I assume it is authoritative.

But I suppose there's no harm in asking whether the offer has been accepted.

I see your article and raise you a Phil Spencer.

https://www.moveiq.co.uk/advice/selling/under-offer-vs-sold/

I wish estate agents would be consistent and use either SSTC or Sale Agreed once an offer has been accepted.

Thanks all for your comments. As suggested above, I think I’ll call the EA and ask to be kept informed if the situation changes.

Under offer is used often in repossessed properties... the bank is trying to make as much as possible by leaving it on the market and encouraging gazumpers, they only care about making lots of money. It doesn't make it moral to do.

EA refused to even show us properties that where marketed like that (there was a name for it but I can't bloody remember it, means it stays 'for sale' until exchange though even after offers accepted).

The offer is accepted in these cases, the buyers are paying out money... just because the seller is greedy doesn't mean its 'ok' to do to someone.