Gazumped

So, my house purchase has just falled through as I have been gazumped! Informed by the Estate Agent by e-mail!

So...I have three choices...

1. Shrug my shoulders and move on
2. Send the e-mail to the local press so neighbours of current house owner and new people know what has gone on and what dispicable people they are...and of course giving the Estate Agent a bad name
3. Get someone to ring up, make a higher offer, thus gazumping the gazumpers...and then pull out in a weeks time...hopefully causing the actual sale to fall through

My head says option 1. My heart says option 2. My instinct tells me option 3.

What should I do?

Really surprised that gazumping is taking place in the dire market at present.

I would walk away personally.

The same happened to me,I was 2 weeks to moving in when I got gazumped.The only thing you can do is make the seller pay your solicitor fees etc.

It's always best, not easy, to take the high road. They will get their full due one day!

Option 3 to get your own back!

It's a fact of life in many parts of the country where demand of decent property far outweighs supply and our weak property buying system which isn't high enough on the governments priority to fix - until some cabinet minister gets gazumped on a house. Although they're probably more likely to be doing the gazumping

I thaught gazumping was illegal now!

(01-03-2012 05:53pm)Token Wrote:  So, my house purchase has just falled through as I have been gazumped! Informed by the Estate Agent by e-mail!

So...I have three choices...

1. Shrug my shoulders and move on
2. Send the e-mail to the local press so neighbours of current house owner and new people know what has gone on and what dispicable people they are...and of course giving the Estate Agent a bad name
3. Get someone to ring up, make a higher offer, thus gazumping the gazumpers...and then pull out in a weeks time...hopefully causing the actual sale to fall through

My head says option 1. My heart says option 2. My instinct tells me option 3.

What should I do?

Sorry can I ask you reasoning behind point 2? How is it the agents fault that a member of a public thinks the house/apartment you were purchasing is worth more? I agree its poor form that the agent didn't have the balls to call you, but aren't you blaming the obsession with increasing house prices on the agent rather than the new buyer?

(02-03-2012 12:26am)jiggyjaggy Wrote:  Sorry can I ask you reasoning behind point 2? How is it the agents fault that a member of a public thinks the house/apartment you were purchasing is worth more? I agree its poor form that the agent didn't have the balls to call you, but aren't you blaming the obsession with increasing house prices on the agent rather than the new buyer?

The agent has a choice in how he operates as far as I'm concerned. He is duty bound to inform the vendor of any offer that comes in, but he could if he wanted to, walk away and not deal with the vendor any further due to the unethical nature of the behaviour. I have walked away from very lucrative deals at work due to the unethical nature of the deals in question...perfectly legal deals, but unethical. I also part-own a tattoo supplies business and we are one of only a handful of companies that refuse to sell tattoo equipment to the general public due to our beliefs about maintaining the tattoo industry. Again, this is missing out on lucrative opportunities, but our ethics dictate. So I don't EXPECT the agent to turn down business at this point, but many people suffer badly due to gazumping (in my case the impact is relatively trivial in this instance) and Estate Agents are in a position where they could deal with it.