I’ve been close to buying a house (could not follow through, for various reasons at the time), and had no issue in ‘reducing’ the offer shortly before the exchange. I dropped it £15,000.

The seller phoned me up, initially raging with anger (as expected) – I asked him to phone me back when he’s calm enough for a civil conversation. An hour later he phoned back (with a very different tone) pleading, saying his wife had fallen in love with a beautiful house she wanted to renovate, and could we raise our offer back to the original one. Unfortunately for him, I had since received a phone call which put all our house-buying plans on hold. Had I been in a position to continue with the purchase, I would possibly offered him a tiny bit more (as a gesture of goodwill).

Just like with a car salesman, he made the mistake of getting emotions involved, and I jumped onto it. Did his wife (and kids) love the new property enough to settle for £15,000 less?

I was not in a chain, therefore I had plenty of flexibility.

Up until that point, I am free to raise/lower my offer as I see fit, and I have no issue in being stone cold. (I might care a bit about the sellers feelings – as a human being – but not £15,000 worth)

and that last post is why im glad im in scotland.

It’s a business transaction – I want to buy it for the lowest you’re prepared to sell it for. If that means you will make less of a profit (and can’t put a new kitchen in your new house, or buy a new showroom car) then tough.

If you can’t afford to sell it for that low, then I’ll move on – I am in no rush right now.

And yes, I’m well aware the same thing *might* happen to me too.

If you can’t afford to sell it for that low, then I’ll move on – I am in no rush right now.

If your truly prepared to walk away then great for you, I told my buyer who tried that with me to get ****.

they came crawling back an hour later with the original full price offer.

sorry but to offer and agree on a price

then to minutes before signing – change your mind.

regardless of the type of transaction …. thats just shitty

offering low to begin with no issue – changing at the 11th hour – id do as jambo did and tell them to GTF

I need my EA to employ these dirty underhand tactics..

Just had an offer from a strong positioned buyer…. however it’s 10% under asking… ideally we need them to come up £5000, ideally £10,000. !!

However, in all honesty… we just want it sold now and to move into our new place, this has been dragging on WAY too long after our buyer pulled out

regardless of the type of transaction

But it’s business, if you’re not acting like an arsehole and pissing people off then you’re doing it wrong, aren’t you?

*makes note to never sell house on STW*

xiphon – I hope I never do any business with you, either personally or through work.

If you did that to me you would get nowhere. I would put the house back on the market. Even if I was “cutting my nose to spite my face”.

Professionally if you tried to behave like that then you would soon get found out and no-one would do business with you.

Once my chain broke and I had to “part ex” my house for our buyers smaller place to complete the sale. We were left with a property but with no mortgage so it was less expensive to leave empty.
I got a buyer pretty quick and was about to complete when they found out I had sold to them for 10% more than I had paid 2mths earlier. They refused to pay anymore than I had and offered me what I had paid. Fine, **** off, I’ll put it back on the market. I did and sold it 8 weeks later for a 15% profit. Market was booming at the time though.

It’s a business transaction – I want to buy it for the lowest you’re prepared to sell it for.

that’s what the offers part of the transaction is for, negotiating a price, if the sellers won’t accept your genuine price move on

I was not in a chain, therefore I had plenty of flexibility.

****ing around on the last day is pretty much blackmail, a whole chain of people are going to end up losing a bunch of time, effort and money unless they accede your demands. Tactics like that mark someone out as a total git.

and saying “but I don’t care about them” marks you out as a sociopath 🙂

well I am not lawyer, but have always been told that exchange of contract is the point of no return, prior to that unless some other kind of agreement is in place then either side can pull out willy nilly..

(I’m not a lawyer either, but have had to sit through several “how not to unintentionaly fall into a contract” seminars)

Depends on the transaction and what would be expected and what you’ve written down (which might be different to what you expected, which is why it was written down). With house buying it’s obviously common to drop the offer at the last minute, therefore you couldn’t make a claim for damages, unless you’re in Scotland, in which case the opposite applies.

Technicaly you’re in a contract the moment you agree a price, there’s no such thing as a “verbal contract” or a “written contract”, the only difference is one’s harder to prove/argue over than the other.

The EA may use some flowery language in e-mails, and put statements like “without prejudice” in corespandance to basicly render it legaly worthless as “without prejudice” is leagalise for “hypotheticaly speeking my friend wants to sell his house to you”.

But it’s business, if you’re not acting like an arsehole and pissing people off then you’re doing it wrong, aren’t you?

Ever actualy been in business? How often do you walk out of Tesco feeling pissed off that the staff acted like a-holes?

edit: Possibly I needed sarcasm tags… I think we’re agreeing.

Ahhhh, the Edinbrough defence.

Ever actualy been in business? How often do you walk out of Tesco feeling pissed off that the staff acted like a-holes?

not very often because tes co cover up being A-Holes quite well.
EG horsemeat, BOGOFS, Loyalty Cards, “Sale” prices. All proven rip offs, yet seemingly socially acceptable. Insurance companies, banks, utility companies all regularly legally do us over.
I have no “moral” problem with Tootal Shell or Xiphons approach, it is not sociopathic or bad, it is just perfectly legal business practise. To all those of you slating them, if your house was on the market and you were at or near exchange and someone came and offered 15k over the asking, with a promise of fast exchange, how would you react?

(PS TINAS you essentially agreed with me regarding legal culpability prior to exchange yeah?)

you were at or near exchange and someone came and offered 15k over the asking, with a promise of fast exchange, how would you react?

I’d say no…. but that’s me..

But it’s business, if you’re not acting like an arsehole and pissing people off then you’re doing it wrong, aren’t you?

Unless you’re buying and selling houses as your job as a property developer, it’s the opposite of a business, it’s your home life. You piss off the vendor, he tells his close friends, ie the neighbours, who immediately identify you as a tw[insert latter a here]t, before you move in. Then you find you need a bit of cooperation with trees on the boundary, or a party wall agreement, or a bit of give and take with party noise, or maybe just to be friendly like neighbours should. Good luck with that. Might be different in ThatLondon or whatever where you avoid eye contact and scurry indoors to avoid them, but many people value good neighbours and neighbourhoods.

To all those of you slating them, if your house was on the market and you were at or near exchange and someone came and offered 15k over the asking, with a promise of fast exchange, how would you react?

With suspicion.
Why have they waited?
How can they promise “fast exchange”? Things get bogged down by lots of random paperwork.
Why are offering over the asking price? There’s normally plenty of other similar properties.
If they are behaving like that, why would I trust them? They will probably just reduce their offer on the day before exchange…..

I would probably ignore the offer TBH. It wouldn’t be worth the stress.

To all those of you slating them, if your house was on the market and you were at or near exchange and someone came and offered 15k over the asking, with a promise of fast exchange, how would you react?

thanks but no thanks?

You piss off the vendor, he tells his close friends, ie the neighbours, who immediately identify you as a tw[insert latter a here]t, before you move in.

That’s a very good point.

Unless you’re buying and selling houses as your job as a property developer, it’s the opposite of a business, it’s your home life. You piss off the vendor, he tells his close friends, ie the neighbours, who immediately identify you as a tw[insert latter a here]t, before you move in.

That.

My, my you lot are very pious. I’m impressed.

pious? for not acting like a shit? Hardly.

toys19 – Member

My, my you lot are very pious. I’m impressed.

I’ve seen recently how much of an issue and problem someone pulling out of a transaction is, how we’ve been VERY close to losing our dream home, I wouldn’t risk that for the sake of a few grand…

Toys with the exception of the horsemeat stuff all the ripoffs you’ve mentioned have been are you too lazy/economically-astute/not-enough-of-a-tightarse to figure out that lazy option A is actually costlier than 30 seconds of thought option B.

Give us some proper rip-offs that are socially acceptable and we’ll see if you have a point. Blackmailing people at the last minute is not on. I don’t think if the BA cabin staff did a whip round to pay the extra £500 heathrow had decided to charge you 30seconds before take off would be socially acceptable.

FTR if I agreed on a house price and 2 days later someone upped it I may consider it, close to exchange not a chance.

To all those of you slating them, if your house was on the market and you were at or near exchange and someone came and offered 15k over the asking, with a promise of fast exchange, how would you react?

No doubt they’d take the higher offer (despite their comments on here…) – who wouldn’t want to be £15,000 better off? No different, apart from the seller is screwing over the buyer.

Who wouldn’t try their luck, and say another buyer is offering only £5k above their offer?

Do you all think Starbucks offer a “fair price” to their suppliers (who are now sole dependants on SB’s business) ?

No, they’ll reduce the ‘offer’ as low as can go, just above the line where the supplier has to close up business.

And the car salesman will artificially bump up the price (well, raise your lowest offer) on a car, that your wife accidentally let slip she really wants, by saying another party is interested.

Successful business men didn’t get to the top by being nice to people – and when big money (big being relative – £15,000 is loads to me!) is involved, emotions go out the window.

No doubt they’d take the higher offer (despite their comments on here…) – who wouldn’t want to be £15,000 better off? No different, apart from the seller is screwing over the buyer.

Who wouldn’t try their luck, and say another buyer is offering only £5k above their offer?

Do you all think Starbucks offer a “fair price” to their suppliers (who are now sole dependants on SB’s business) ?

No, they’ll reduce the ‘offer’ as low as can go, just above the line where the supplier has to close up business.

And the car salesman will artificially bump up the price (well, raise your lowest offer) on a car, that your wife accidentally let slip she really wants, by saying another party is interested.

Successful business men didn’t get to the top by being nice to people – and when big money (big being relative – £15,000 is loads to me!) is involved, emotions go out the window

Absolute load of rubbish.

I’m loving this dreamworld some of you live in. The gov’t and big business thanks you, relies on you, for your honesty and gullibility.

No, they’ll reduce the ‘offer’ as low as can go, just above the line where the supplier has to close up business.

Maybe not quite that far…. but they’re hardly known for being generous…

Anybody remember the rocketing hard drive prices in late 2011, due to flooding in the Far East?

I ordered (and paid for) about 30 drives (from a well known international IT supplier). I later receive an email saying the order was cancelled, money refunded, and the price of drives had risen 15% (in a matter of hours). Supply and demand, innit…

toys19 – Member

I’m loving this dreamworld some of you live in. The gov’t and big business thanks you, relies on you, for your honesty and gullibility.

When you take the £15k above asking offer, that then falls through, Mrs Toys then loses the property she’s dreamed off for years and ends up sitting on the kitchen floor sobbing and unhappy… You let us know how that goes.

Sometimes it’s not about money… it’s about people… it’s about lives.. it’s about emotions.

I would be a BIT happier with £15,000 more…

i’d be a LOT unhappier losing the house we’re buying and having £15,000 extra.

toys19 – Member
I’m loving this dreamworld some of you live in. The gov’t and big business thanks you, relies on you, for your honesty and gullibility.

Pretty sure the topic being discussed here is houses and buying/selling between people not governments/big business (though if Amazon want my house they’re welcome to put an offer in 😉 )

And that’s where I don’t want to act like a shit on purpose which is what dropping an offer the day before exchanging is being. Or accepting another offer for £15k over which given the above will probably result in the price being dropped 20k the day before exchange…

I am surprised that you find your position defensible. I truly hope I never have to business with anyone like you, if you wanted to pay 15k less you should have offered it in the first place, you sound like you have no honour. It’s not honesty and gullibility, it’s decency and empathy.

Successful business men didn’t get to the top by being nice to people – and when big money

No, it is well known that most “successful” business men are sociopaths. That they don’t give a **** about anyone but themselves.

Sorry to break it to you but most people want an easy life and shafting other people tends not to be the easy option. You make an agreement and game over.

Salesmen are on the whole ****s but that is a different discussion.

No doubt they’d take the higher offer (despite their comments on here…) – who wouldn’t want to be £15,000 better off? No different, apart from the seller is screwing over the buyer.

The flaw in your logic is that the person offering is probably as much as a **** as you. Which means he will probably mess you around before completion.

Also, plenty of valid reasons for rejecting the 2nd offer have been given above.

By the way, if your business model is so successful, why is £15k “loads” of money to you?

I think my last buyer was a xiphon clone.

On the day of exchange he rang to reduce the offer by £10,000. After all manner of dicking around waiting for him (self-employed) to get his finances in order.

He was told to eff off. We held our nerve and it went through at the agreed price. I would have let it collapse and sold to someone who was a half decent human being.

And this thread started off being about how bad EA’s are; it’s turned into how venal some buyers and sellers are.

I’m starting to feel some sympathy for them. It’s a new experience.

Xiphon – firm but fair is usually the best practice in business. My two previous bosses and current senior partner in my business are all net worth, self-made, of +£100M (fairly successful then). All are firm but fair in business. Try to renegotiate on a (verbal) contract like this and you wont be in business long.

Also if you did this on a house sale I was involved in I’d be telling you where to go like everyone else.

I later receive an email saying the order was cancelled, money refunded, and the price of drives had risen 15%

so they didn’t keep your money and say “the price has changed now, pay up the extra 15% or lose your money.” That’s not very cut-throat of them is it? Surprised you didn’t tell them to stop being a bunch of handwringing losers and get some business acumen.

With house sales by and large you are messing with peoples lives. Try that shit when you want to buy someone’s bike/car whatever and you’ll probably just get told to **** off for time wasting or the seller figures he can handle the loss in money just to get shut. Do it with a house sale with the families entire belongings in the van, new family waiting outside with all their gear….you could be making life really hard for a family or a few. Really, really shitty thing to do.

Seems integrity is just a word to a lot of people.

toys19 – Member

PS TINAS you essentially agreed with me regarding legal culpability prior to exchange yeah?

I said you might get away with it, try it with a seller with deep pockets and a better lawyer and you could find yourself paying their costs, and everyone elses in the chain. They’d just have to prove you’d entered a contract, which woul depend on how carefully you’d worded every bit of corespodance with them.

(I’m still not a lawyer)

Jeezus. Anyone who tried to **** me over like that on exchange day would be getting a house riddled with loose plumbing olives and earthless re-wiring. “A plague o’ both your houses!”

We’re currently selling two properties. Both estate agents are a bunch of useless ^%$^$6 ^$£@ …. (cont pg 94)

Well I moved to my current house in Surrey from London in the heat of the last boom – 2007. I got a buyer for my house offering me the asking price and I had my offer accepted on the house I wanted. Now as prices were moving so quickly I had another agent, Foxtons, promising me that they could get 10% over the price I’d agreed for mine (a lot more than £15k), I said I wasn’t interested.

A few months later when we finally managed to complete I picked up the keys for my new place and EA told me someone had tried to gazump me but my seller told them he wasn’t interested.

It’s not all about trying to screw people over and maybe if I’d delayed things by switching buyers for more money maybe my vendor would have thought that he may as well do the same.