Gazumping. Should we do it?

[Itsrainingten]

We viewed a house about 6 weeks ago. Loved it. Had a second viewing and wanted to make an offer. Spoke to seller, explaining we were awaiting an offer on our house first but we had someone who had seen it 3 times and was apparently "just waiting for her husband to return from his business trip on Friday" and then would offer on ours. Well unsurprisingly she then went radio silence. I was in touch with sellers EA regularly letting them know we wanted it but still weren't in a proceedable (?) position. Even put forward a full asking price offer if they'd hold on for us. They didn't want to wait. Fair enough. Well this morning I looked on RM and it says it's SSTC. It wasn't on Friday. Thing is we've literally (like 2 hours ago) accepted an offer on ours so now we ARE proceedable. We are considering getting in touch and offering them £750k - asking price was £735. What do you think? Is this too immoral? Would you do it?

Semester unfortunately, gone are the days when a man's word was their bond.

We did this for our home. We ended up in a bidding war but we got it!

Yes it's shitty but so is the whole property buying process so it's what it is. @Itsrainingten make your offer and if they accept it fine if not move on.

Refusing to gazump only makes sense if we all collectively agree not to or better still change the damn process.

No, you should never gazump, it’s only done by people with a sorry lack of morals. When we sold our last house someone attempted to gazump our buyers by £25k and we never even considered their offer as I didn’t want to sell our cottage to people that would do that. We were also worried that the sort of people who do such a horrible thing as gazumping may also be the sort of people who would wait until exchange and gazunder, or pull out entirely. I would never have trusted them.

When we bought that cottage (our first house) someone who had seen it weeks before tried to gazump us by offering a small amount more about a week after we had had our offer agreed. We had already spent money instructing conveyancers and kicking off the searches, so we had to up our offer to match theirs meaning we spent our first winter with no proper heating (it was a reno) or kitchen.

Don’t gazump - it is never ok.

Normally I would say no, but it’s such early days here that the other buyer won’t have incurred any costs, so I would do it.

ColdWaterDipper

You rejects £25K because of the ‘type of people’ that might live in your own house?

How long would it take you to earn £25K?

Morals? That’s expensive!

Very expensive morals, but @ColdWaterDipper can rest easy knowing that the right type of person lives in her old house.

😂

I’d rather have the 25k personally

Don’t do it. It’s not morally fair and you know it. Not judging because I did this myself, and my significantly increased offer was rejected because the seller didn’t want to be the kind of person to go back once accepting an offer. Once it sunk in, I felt shitty for trying to do this.

You aren't "proceedable" until you are much further down the track on your sale..... at exchange of contracts

At any given time your buyer can pull out and your purchase can fall through unless you get a bridging loan.

It's reported even the Scottish system isn't as secure as it once was.

I wouldn't even countenance your higher offer unless you were in a more secure position to complete, ie provable funds held on account.

I think that's a good response, I agree.

I would not

Every time we've bought and sold the houses have been taken off the market as soon as offers were accepted.

Hate the game not the players.

I would do it for my dream house.

Not sitting in judgement. It says as much about the sellers as it would about anyone gazumping.

That said, it may just give a little window into peoples attitudes and with a seller willing to let someone down and a buyer willing to pull the rug from under someone......well its a recipe for some interesting situations.

Same here. In fact the offer was always dependent on the property being taken off the market.

Same here. In fact the offer was always dependent on the property being taken off the market

You can still be gazumpted, and what can you do about it? Absolutely nothing.

Yes, indeed. Ans some sellers' HAs won't take them off the market. So the choice is, go ahead, spend on surveys etc. and risk being gazumped by some unscrupulous chancer or find anther house.
Last time we lost 15K because of some unscrupulous chancer trying to gazump us after surveys etc- we were only waiting for the seller's legal problems to be sorted out. We were forced into a best and final, which cost us that money. Then, though we 'won' that best and final the CF tried to gazump us a second time. Thankfully at that point the seller decided it was only fair to keep to our best and final offer, as we'd already spent on surveys etc and been patient for the best part of 6 months with the sellers' legal wrangling.
Unsurprisingly, I think gazumpers stink.

Just in case anyone is interested in the outcome - the sellers said no this morning. They've been thinking about it, and promised us first refusal if anything goes wrong but they're going to stick with their original buyers. I am disappointed but I respect their integrity and I'm pleased I tried or we'd always have wondered.
So there you go.

Well, you just never know, OP. Like I said upthread, we 'lost' this house to another buyer that dropped out a few months in, giving spurious reasons for doing so (my theory is the garden size put them off, whilst we were salivating over it!).

In the meantime, good luck with your search elsewhere.

I think that is the best thing for everyone. It means the seller knows this is an option.

Good luck with your house hunting.
I'm a big believer in that what's meant for you won't pass you buy.
Maybe this house does come back to you. Maybe there's an even more perfect place that's just not presented itself yet.

As I said before, it was really their moral dilemmas not yours and it seems they have decided to stick with their original buyer. But at least you know now rather than always wondering “what if?…” and also they know there is potentially another interested buyer should their original buyer drop out or start messing them around.

I think there's a god chance it'll fall through. Lots are around here apparently.

You're in a good place if it does and they sound like decent people.

I agree. Where house hunting is concerned it's often the one that falls through that isn't meant to be. Seen it happen often.