You’re moving around the corner. Tell your buyers you have a higher offer but are happy with their offer, but would one a timely exchange of contracts Tell the would be gazumpers that they are second choice should a sale fall through.

Your new round the corner neighbours will think you are honourable.  And you can hold your head high when you meet them in the street

As for the 10k, inflation takes care of that. It’s not real money.

I agree that that dishonesty is a big ethical issue.

It certainly is, which is why I would never (and have never) be dishonest when buying property.

There are enough lies from agents and solicitors as it is.

Apparently some Spanish bloke in some football tournament somewhere has pissed someone off big time because he renaged on something he agreed to only a few weeks ago. He may have got a better offer?

To be honest we’re running a mile as this feels all a bit odd to be honest

Your feeling is most likely correct.

You would almost certainly be manipulated.

Imagine you did the same with a set of Pikes or something off the forum here. The only difference is the magnintude of the cash difference you would seek to gain, assuming the buyer did not just pull out.

They say houses are different, and should be viewed as a ‘business’ transaction but as mentioned above business should have a degree of morals associated with it. If not, just look where it gets u- like Trump! All the money and a mouth but a total ****.

Stick with what u were happy with initially. Gazumping sucks. Been there and it hurts to the person who has made a reasonable offer (ie our family at the time)

The agent was trying to get as much out of me as he could, that’s his job to secure the best price and speedy transaction for his client.

Even that’s debatable. IDK what commission rates are currently, but say it’s 2% for sake of argument. Getting £5K extra on top of the price results in another £100 which after tax and everything else probably results in him trousering something around £50. Which yes, is £50 but against the necessity to move housing stock fast and hit targets and so on is pretty small. Their onus is to get you to sell it quickly, not to get the best price for you, and while selling quickly is a good thing, don’t expect them to bust a gut for a few quid extra.

When we bought, our sellers contacted us through the agent explaining that they had had a higher offer (£10k) and although they felt uncomfortable, hadn’t made up their minds etc etc….

We decided to match the higher offer, but made it clear re timescales for moving etc (which worked out really well, as their onward move got messed up, but we still moved in when we needed)

“Thier onus is to get you to sell it quickly, not the best price for you”…. which is why I’d be mighty peed off if my house sold in 15 blooming minutes.

But put that to one side….

Ji has got a good idea…. go back to the people who you’ve excepted the offer from, telling them about the higher offer and see what they say.

Ji had to pay up …. but i bet he’s happy now in his home and thinks he probably made the right decision.

Hell …. I had to pay up more for a house when the seller didn’t even have another offer!! They just up their price a few grand during the process because, quite rightly, the market had changed and I was getting their house too cheap … I could have thought they were taking the pee got all “proud” and backed out. But I knew that it wouldn’t matter in the long run and almost 20 years later, it doesn’t.

Good luck

Sounds like you’re being scammed by a Nigerian ghost buyer.

Sounds like you’re being scammed by a Nigerian ghost buyer.

Why would someone who buys ghosts be interested in a house? Unless it was haunted, of course.

Is there a specific market for Nigerian ghosts?

Is there a specific market for Nigerian ghosts?

F-right-Mo-oooooooo-ve

I’d stick with the original offer too.

Theres no guarantee that the lender for the other guys will lend what they’re willing to pay. We sold our house this year and ended up with three offers, do under advise from the estate agent we went to best and final offers. We ended up with three the same, so went with the guys who made the offer first. The surveyors down valued the house though so we didn’t get the extra money. We never expected asking price let alone more – we ended up selling or what we would have accepted below the asking price.

The process is bloody horrible and it’s nuts to think that even though we’ve exchanged contracts, it’s still not a done deal until the mortgage lenders actually cough up on completion day. I hope we like our new house, because I’m in no rush to go through this again!