Buying a house that already accepted an offer

[ex1]

Just started looking and found the perfect house. It really does have everything, we could look for years and not find something that suits our needs as well.

Unfortunately the buyer accepted an offer 5 wks ago. It was on the market 1 week, had 24 viewings and 5 asking price offers. The seller agreed a deal at £4k over the asking price and chose the buyer who was in the best position.

The price agreed is £20k under our budget and we could probably go £30k more than that if we really needed to.

The estate agent wouldn't return my calls so I knocked on the door to speak to the owner, a lovely lady who was moving to live nearer her son. Even if I was comfortable gazumping it didn't feel appropriate to start throwing cash around. She spent an hour showing me around and telling me where she was up to in the sale. I'm sure she would give us first refusal if anything falls through but we really want the place.

Any suggestions as to what we might do to try and secure it? What could I offer, who should I speak to?

[ex1]

Owner is a recent widower, I suggested our budget was above what had been agreed, she mentioned how nice the buyers were and how her late husband wouldn't have liked her going back on agreement. Hence it didn't seem appropriate.

How about offering the buyers £5k to walk away and increasing asking price? Maybe the agent could be persuaded?

[ex1]

Weak link in chain seems to be her. She Pulled our of her purchase after survey and has offer accepted on the house next door.

[ex1]

normalbloke said:

What a nice chap you are.

Offering the buyer £5k to walk away. I would say that was exceptional nice.

We could look for the next 10 years and not find somewhere as suitable and its under our budget, hence trying to see if there is a way we can do something.

If you met your dream women but she had already been on a first date with someone else you wouldn't pursue it?

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Vocal Minority said:

I always try and treat others as I would like to be treated, but appreciate that if its the dream house its a difficult situation.

As do I, which is why I'm finding is so difficult.

Perhaps I should also mention that as well as ticking every box from my partners point of view it also has a 6m x 9m garage!

[ex1]

EggsBenedict said:

What's so special about this house?

Everything. Location - great schools, beautiful location, good links to family, work, layout, neighbours, style etc, etc, etc. If we could design our own house anywhere in the country it would be this place in this location. It literally ticks every box, there is nothing we would be compromising on, and its well under budget.

The last sale in this particular area was this place 25 years ago. Very frustrating.

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p1stonhead said:

I believe EA's are legally obliged to present any offers to their clients that they are given.

I suspect you will need more than £5k more than the other guy though. Id like to say morrally Id never accept a late offer once things had started but its very hard to say depending on how much it was.

But I certainly wouldnt consider accept another offer unless it was life changing value - call it £30k plus or something. That much money is very hard to overlook despite morals. £5k - no way.

I was thinking £15k over + £5k for the buyer. Not sure either me or the seller would be happy just shafting the buyer but £5k cash would certainly help appease them.

[ex1]

HotJambalaya said:

Agreed.

But then you're in trouble if buyer accepts and then someone else jumps in with a bigger offer.

OP has to tackle this by the woman unfortunately, so either try her again with an extra £20k, and failing that tell her to make sure you have first refusal if it falls through, and to cut out the estate agent, that way she'll get substantially more.

Then again, if sale falls through, you've tipped your hand and wont get it for the price the buyer has agreed...

Pretty sure we would get first refusal but the chain sounds pretty good. If anything the seller seems the weak link.

[ex1]

p1stonhead said:

OP did the seller intimate she may be open to this? She may have said no to others already considering there were 5 offers.

Edited by p1stonhead on Tuesday 19th May 11:38

I suggested our budget was above what had been agreed, she mentioned how nice the buyers were and how her late husband wouldn't have liked her going back on agreement. Hence it didn't seem appropriate to make an offer even if I could put aside my own issues with gazumping.

[ex1]

Might call in later with a thank you cake for inviting us in and ask her if she felt the buyers would be interested. Seller doesn't seem motivated by money and would do the right thing but perhaps the buyer would walk away a happy bunny with £5k.

Maybe just offer buyer the £20k, and everyones happy?

[ex1]

p1stonhead said:

ex1 said:

Might call in later with a thank you cake for inviting us in and ask her if she felt the buyers would be interested. Seller doesn't seem motivated by money and would do the right thing but perhaps the buyer would walk away a happy bunny with £5k.

Maybe just offer buyer the £20k, and everyones happy?

Dont offer the buyer anything. Its an imorral deed anyway but it will come down to the sellers morals in the end not yours. Let her give the buyer compensation if she wants.

It wouldn't be immoral if all 3 parties go away happy. If I offered seller £xxxxx over I could suggest the she discuss with the buyer and see if they come to an arrangement where everyone was happy.

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p1stonhead said:

This could be the best approach and may work.

But what is the value of the house? Is it being sold for £1m or £100k? Makes a massive differnce to how much £10k is in the grand scheme of things.

Somewhere near the middle.

[ex1]

I think the words "dream house" is often over used.

I am a frustrated architect and designed my own house 15 years ago with the hope of one day self-building. This house is better. The layout/design is incredibly similar and you would never get planning to build anything in a location as good as this again.

If I were to list the things that would make a dream house for us its got it all.

I delivered a letter to the owner yesterday explaining our situation offering £21k over the current highest bid - £25k over the initial asking price and suggest she discuss with the other party involved and let me know.

The agent called this afternoon, they have decided to decline my offer and leave things as they are.

Edited by ex1 on Friday 22 May 00:45

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el stovey said:

Imagine if the seller accepted your offer, you celebrate with your family and then before it's all settled, some other person came along and offered more than you as it was their dream house also?

Life is full of regrets for some people. I'm happy we did all we could, I don't feel I did anything underhanded, we have accepted the outcome and will move on.

If people did their research and took the right advice we wouldn't have had the opportunity to offer anything.

If I think about any other house we've bought had someone offered me a nice Porsche 911 - 997 Atlas Grey, Manual, 3.8 with a sunroof or an round the world trip to walk away I would of probably been quite happy. Given the price we are talking I suspect its 6-9mths take home salary for the people involved, hardly a kick in the nuts.

It sounds like the chain is delayed anyway so we might get first refusal and it will no doubt still cost us £21k more. Either way its a beautiful day and I have little to complain about.

[ex1]

el stovey said:

Of course it's underhand.

I didn't feel what I wrote in the letter and the way I approached it was underhanded. I didn't put any pressure on her I simply thank her for her time, gave her the letter and told her we would respect her decision either way and good luck with everything.

In the letter I suggest she speak to the buyer and take things from there. Would it have been underhanded if I had approached the buyer direct and offered them £250k to walk away, no. I didn't break an agreements and I didn't suggest she did.

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Mousem40 said:

I wouldn't do this. The vendor seems to have a high moral fibre. She needs to be spoken to directly. To see you're a decent person, to enjoy your cake, to meet your wife and lovely family, to see how much it means to you, get the wife to put on the waterworks, get the kids to beg her etc etc - a bolshy phone call/email from the estate agent won't sway her mind, remember it's not really about the money to her.

I don't suppose the agent will think long and hard about doing this deal and trying hard for you either. A bird in the hand and all that. What does he stand to gain - perhaps a minuscule amount of extra commission paid a good few weeks later, or carry on with the existing deal with buyers who seem serious?

Go with your family and speak to her directly with a plan of action, tug at her heart strings, let the money be secondary, tell her you'll make the other buyer good on his expenses etc.

Edited by Mousem40 on Thursday 21st May 21:13

I suspect the buyer wasn't even made aware of it. After delivering the letter I went to introduce myself to the agent and let him know what I had offered. He was a typical estate agent and seemed very put out that I had approached directly. Having already realised he was a critical element I did my upmost to build some rapport and get him motivated about the potential of another buyer with £10k-£20k extra to spend and the fact we already had everything in place.

His body language was bordering on aggressive. He told me he would be very surprised if anything changed, it would be going through him anyway and was very condesending about my knowledge of the local housing market asking me if I had seen what I could get for that money mocking me for trying to pay over the odds.

Aside from the fact we loved the house I also think it was undervalued and my offer £25k over the asking price was a realistic offer which also happened to be at the max we would be comfortable with. It wouldn't surprise me if the agent was on a kick back - 24 viewings, 5 offers and it only went for £4k over the asking. Unfortunately he had won the vendor trust and she spoke very highly of him and how lovely he had been etc, etc. Certainly didn't sound like aggressive, arrogant little prick I met.

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el stovey said:

The (nice old) lady had made an agreement to sell the house to someone.

You turned up at her house (because the estate agent refused to return your calls) and indirectly offered her money to sell you the house, she told you she was not going to break the agreement she had with someone else. You then delivered an envelope directly offering her money and was rejected again.

How on earth do you think she was going to sell you the house without breaking her agreement?

I didn't offer her money to break her agreement. I offered her money to share with the buyer to see how motivated they were. Like I say had I offered the buyer £1m to walk would that have been underhanded, no it wouldn't as everyone would have been happy.

[ex1]

She obviously didn't feel it was underhanded either as she has offered us first refusal should anything not work out.

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85Carrera said:

It is underhand. OP knows this but is hoping to have his behaviour validated by others on here, while knowing it was wrong

Good for the seller for being principled and not behaving in a similar fashion.

If I had the option the buyer would have been my first point of call. It was our dream house but even I would had walked away for £1m. Somewhere between £10k & £1m and everyone would have been happy. Unfortunately I didn't have contact with the buyer and I didn't have £1m.

I wouldn't have been comfortable shafting the buyer and karma can be a bh hence why I approached it as I did. Obviously this approach wouldn't have worked had the vendor not been as principled.

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el stovey said:

Of course she thought it was underhand, that's why she twice refused to take your money and break her agreement with the buyer.

If she was comfortable with your attempted guzumping, you would be the one getting the house. She even told you her late husband wouldn't want her to do it, the first time you offered her money.

I only offered once and I wasn't asking her to take the money, well not all of it anyway.

I suspect the reason we aren't buying the house is because the agent didn't want us to or it also happened to be the buyers dream house and £20k wasn't enough I never expected the vendor to shaft the buyer as you will see from my initial post.

Edited by ex1 on Thursday 21st May 23:01