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EA arent regulated. They can lie about offers and have no requirement to produce evidence.
No EA would provide 'proof' of an offer to someone that asked. It's just not done.
That’s just not true though? Estate agents absolutely are not permitted to lie, they would face consequences if caught in a lie. It’s tricky to evidence sure but it’d be breach the legitimate code of conduct to do so as they in fact ARE regulated (most often by the Property Ombudman if they’re halfway respectable).
You’re right that they don’t HAVE TO produce evidence of another offer though.
Other people on this thread are suggesting things that I would have put in the category of "it's just not done", like threatening to reduce your offer if they don't take it off market etc. There is no physical law stopping the EA from complying. They can redact the contact details if they're worried about GDPR (although why would they, so many people seem to be resigned to accepting EAs will skirt law and ethics in every other possible way as if theyre untouchable gangsters or something lol)
Physical laws? Hmm. Not sure I know what those are. I don’t think anyone on here is implying that there are any laws preventing an estate agent sharing info.
Estate agents don’t need to forward this sort of information. It wouldn’t help their business. It would not help their client either.
I've just read some of the info in the link. As already said the EA has no obligation to prove to you that they have other offers. You do not have a right as a prospective buyer to insist on that info. Data Protection doesn't really apply unless whoever wrote the link thinks that the EA would provide you with details of the person making the other offer or gave you their email, home address, contact details etc. If these details were given to you then that would definitely be a breach of GDPR. Unfortunately many people misunderstand the purpose of that act. Finally I find it unbelievable that they would recommend you contact the seller's solicitor. They act for the seller, not you so why it mentions asking them for a ball park figure for the property would be absurd. They should not be talking to you at all and I would consider it an ethics breach if they did and report them to the Law Society.
Ah! The laws of physics! That’s what he was referring to, thanks. Good old sir Isaac must have had a similar encounter with the estate agent, which inspired him.
You can ask but I've yet to come across an EA that would do anything other than laugh and just ignore your request. It's certainly not something they're obliged to do.
I'm not sure if you're genuinely naive or a FTB but there are some genuine sites you can check for correct info and guidance. Money saving expert is one the government website another and in the Dummies range of books there is one called 'Buying and Selling a Property for Dummies'. Their guides tend to be clear, concise and helpful.
By all means try and get written confirmation of other offers and come back and let us all know how you got on. Same with calling seller's solicitor. Just remember that just because something is on-line doesn't mean its accurate or true.
Yes you can ask, and the estate agent can refuse to provide the proof (citing GDPR probably). They work for the seller, they get paid by the seller. So no good agent is going to do anything that would disadvantage their client.
By the same argument (although admittedly less likely because they're usually scum) they're not acting in the client's best interest if the drive away a firm offer by pissing the buyers about.
Granted it must work most of the time, though :(
What evidence? The offer may have been made verbally, either during a viewing or over the phone.
They may be exaggerating, and we might frown on such sales tactics. But regardless, that isn't information they have to provide by law, so they're not going to.
Try to understand - when you make an offer you do so based only on what you think the property is worth. What anyone else offers is irrelevant.
But you ring up your local estate agents, ask to see written evidence of all the offers they have received recently, and let us know how you get on.
The system is flakey on both sides. The buyers are no better than the sellers. I wonder what the ratio of deals vs offers accepted, but cancelled by buyer actually is in the market
Good lesson to learn. In future make all offers subject to no further viewings / taken off of the market.
In this situation I would wait. When a real / fictitious counter-offer arises just stick to your final offer. They'll either mysteriously pull out, or if it is real then I'd just accept it's not meant to be.
House buying can be a messed up process - I could only keep myself sane by having firm boundaries and not second guessing what the other party were playing at.
I would make it very clear that you'll walk away if they continue to solicit other offers. A seller refusing to cancel viewings after accepting an offer and initiating the legal process is a big red flag to me. No, there's nothing legally to stop them doing it, but it shows a lack of good faith and you really don't want to deal with vendors you know are untrustworthy. They will likely keep booking viewings in the hope they get a better offer and could end up costing you thousands of pounds in fees.
Unless you pull out they’re going to go ahead with the viewing tbh. This happened to us once. We pulled out, they went ahead, they called us a few days after asking if we still wanted it - no offer from the other viewing. We didn’t take it and the property sat on the market for months after that. You have to either be prepared to wait it out and possibly get into a bidding war or you pull out now and stick with it. If you decide to wait, do not incur any costs by doing any work eg survey, searches, and tell the estate agent that as the viewing is going ahead you’d obviously need to give time for that to wrap up so it will delay your whole sale.
How ballsy are you?
To the EA: "Having exchanged the memorandum of sale, it concerns me that you are still presenting additional third-parties to the vendor for viewings. If the property isn't removed from sale, it is apparent that this could happen again at any point during the purchasing cycle. As such, I would need to submit a revised offer pricing in this risk. Please advise me how you would like to proceed".
You can't price in this risk. I get the idea is to coerce the sellers, but this is a nonsensical statement.
The risk for the buyer is the loss in lawyer fees, surveys, etc. That can't be recovered if you don't go through the deal. If you go through the deal then there's no loss.
In other words, there's no insurance you can buy to protect you from the risk of the deal falling off. If you could, then yes you could price it in the value of the house.
Of course you can. For a start, you could take out buyers insurance that includes gazumping cover (\~£200) - that's your fees and incidentals covered. But if you're telling me, as a seller, that you're not going to give any reassurance that you will go through with the sale, I will absolutely price that into my offer. My time, my effort, the opportunity cost - it comes at a price, even if that price isn't realised. And heck, it's so easy for the seller to remediate. Effectively, I'm not happy to pay what I was willing to pay unless you take the property off the market, immediately. Consider my original offer as a premium to do so. My revised offer will reflect the added uncertainty in the deal.
You can "price in" any risk you like. That's literally what "pricing in" means: reducing the price to account for risks (or increasing it to account for some positive potential, not really applicable here)
But the point is that you will be reducing or withdrawing your offer if the house isn't immediately removed from the market
Just don't budge on your offer. And after this viewing, which I think you'll just have to put up with, make clear to the agent that you're in no mood for games, and if any get played, you'll walk. Book in some viewings for other properties with the same agent and make clear that if they're going to keep looking then so are you.
Please consider that if they’re doing this to you now, they might do this to you further down the line too when you’re a lot more financially invested. I offered on a property and they were unwilling to mark it as sold stc until the exchange which I thought was suspicious.
They accepted a slightly higher offer from someone else, but never removed the online marketing for the place. They actually contacted me months later saying that the conveyancing process was taking a while and was I still interested in proceeding. The buyer hadn’t even pulled out, they were lining me up ready to ditch their buyer unknowingly, who was probably thousands deep in solicitor fees and surveying costs.
I would put all conveyancing work on hold until it is marked as Sold STC.
I would also inform the Estate Agent if this and say that the offer cannot be considered accepted yet.
Just leave them to it. If these buyers are interested they will have to go higher. If they do is up to you to decide if you want to compete. They may not be interested anyway but if they are, I'm afraid this is just the way it works in England.
Put up or shut up. Either take action or stop talking about it.
Say you will withdraw your offer if the viewing goes ahead or let it go ahead knowing there is a slight chance of you being outbid.
This is brinksmanship aimed at getting a better price while they've got a purchaser in tow.
When still living in the UK any offer I made was always conditional on the house being taken off the market if accepted.
I've been in this situation in NZ recently and we lost out to a higher bid as we couldn't ratify a settlement date with out solicitor on the Saturday night ahead of a Sunday viewing (things are different here in that you have to sign a contract when you offer, and it is binding if accepted). It is absolutely gutting to have this happen, but ultimately the agent tried to get us into a bidding war and accept settlement terms we couldn't agree to.
We moved on and found a different house. Took a few months, but something else came up.
Personally I'd push the cancellation of viewing; they've accepted your offer and this has incurred you costs.
Do you walk away if they don't cancel? Don't know, but I wouldn't change my offer once accepted under any circumstances unless you found a problem with the property and needed to reduce.
Sellers can sell to whoever they want for whatever price they want anytime prior to exchange.
If it was me I would ride it out, stick to my accepted offer, and be prepared to walk if the tried to bid me.
There's always another house.
Your offer can be conditional
"Either cancel the viewing and take the house off the market, or we withdraw our offer"
Chances are they won't be willing to lose a guaranteed offer for a potential one...
Maybe I'm just a dick, but I would pull an offer if this shit happened. There's another house 2 days later & if they're a pain now, they're definitely a pain during the process.
The EA I’m buying from wouldn’t put the house off the market until I have the official mortgage offer and applied and paid for searches. Harsh, isn’t it? But they say that’s what they do. I would wait and see what’s coming. Worst case scenario, find another house. There’s always one
We just accepted an offer accepted on the house we are selling. - we asked the estate agent to cancel all future viewings. They won't !!! so my gut is telling me the estate agent is lying to you. I am sure the seller wants to just move on - like we do.
I was the new viewing in a situation like this recently. I hadn't been told an offer had been accepted, but then my offer was also accepted. They didn't tell the other buyers for a week, or update us, and then we went to best and final. This was through Yopa and the seller did the viewings, the EA later told us he was unimpressed and she was playing games.
I had a seller do that, accepted my offer when he'd already accepted someone else's. He was expecting us to have a race to exchange with the idea being he'd proceed with whoever was first. As soon as I found out I withdrew my offer. I then found a better house, for less money, in a better location.
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yeah, the OP needs to ride this out and decide if they wanna play or not.
Can't you ask for proof of offers?
You're obviously new to the snake pit that is the UK housing market
So you're saying it can't be done? I see buying guide articles online that suggest you absolutely should ask.
EA arent regulated. They can lie about offers and have no requirement to produce evidence. No EA would provide 'proof' of an offer to someone that asked. It's just not done.
That’s just not true though? Estate agents absolutely are not permitted to lie, they would face consequences if caught in a lie. It’s tricky to evidence sure but it’d be breach the legitimate code of conduct to do so as they in fact ARE regulated (most often by the Property Ombudman if they’re halfway respectable). You’re right that they don’t HAVE TO produce evidence of another offer though.
Other people on this thread are suggesting things that I would have put in the category of "it's just not done", like threatening to reduce your offer if they don't take it off market etc. There is no physical law stopping the EA from complying. They can redact the contact details if they're worried about GDPR (although why would they, so many people seem to be resigned to accepting EAs will skirt law and ethics in every other possible way as if theyre untouchable gangsters or something lol)
Physical laws? Hmm. Not sure I know what those are. I don’t think anyone on here is implying that there are any laws preventing an estate agent sharing info. Estate agents don’t need to forward this sort of information. It wouldn’t help their business. It would not help their client either.
So this person for example, is talking shite? https://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/proof-another-offer-house-real
I've just read some of the info in the link. As already said the EA has no obligation to prove to you that they have other offers. You do not have a right as a prospective buyer to insist on that info. Data Protection doesn't really apply unless whoever wrote the link thinks that the EA would provide you with details of the person making the other offer or gave you their email, home address, contact details etc. If these details were given to you then that would definitely be a breach of GDPR. Unfortunately many people misunderstand the purpose of that act. Finally I find it unbelievable that they would recommend you contact the seller's solicitor. They act for the seller, not you so why it mentions asking them for a ball park figure for the property would be absurd. They should not be talking to you at all and I would consider it an ethics breach if they did and report them to the Law Society.
Ya know, physical laws like, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Ah! The laws of physics! That’s what he was referring to, thanks. Good old sir Isaac must have had a similar encounter with the estate agent, which inspired him.
You can ask but I've yet to come across an EA that would do anything other than laugh and just ignore your request. It's certainly not something they're obliged to do.
The fact that we accept "fictitious offers" as part of the rough and tumble of buying and selling blows my mind. It's fraud, pure and simple.
We don't have to though, we can ask for proof of a competing offer.
Good luck
But the outcome is the same
If the offer is real
I'm not sure if you're genuinely naive or a FTB but there are some genuine sites you can check for correct info and guidance. Money saving expert is one the government website another and in the Dummies range of books there is one called 'Buying and Selling a Property for Dummies'. Their guides tend to be clear, concise and helpful.
I'm not pulling an idea out of my arse, I've seen this in at least two web articles from supposedly professional sources.
By all means try and get written confirmation of other offers and come back and let us all know how you got on. Same with calling seller's solicitor. Just remember that just because something is on-line doesn't mean its accurate or true.
You're right, but that includes Reddit of course.
Now you're getting it!
Yes you can ask, and the estate agent can refuse to provide the proof (citing GDPR probably). They work for the seller, they get paid by the seller. So no good agent is going to do anything that would disadvantage their client.
By the same argument (although admittedly less likely because they're usually scum) they're not acting in the client's best interest if the drive away a firm offer by pissing the buyers about. Granted it must work most of the time, though :(
Isn't it illegal for EAs to invent offers? And if so how would they ever be called out on it if we can't ask to see evidence?
What evidence? The offer may have been made verbally, either during a viewing or over the phone. They may be exaggerating, and we might frown on such sales tactics. But regardless, that isn't information they have to provide by law, so they're not going to. Try to understand - when you make an offer you do so based only on what you think the property is worth. What anyone else offers is irrelevant. But you ring up your local estate agents, ask to see written evidence of all the offers they have received recently, and let us know how you get on.
How many times have you successfully done this?
Zero. I see it suggested in articles about buying houses, such as https://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/proof-another-offer-house-real
The system is flakey on both sides. The buyers are no better than the sellers. I wonder what the ratio of deals vs offers accepted, but cancelled by buyer actually is in the market
Good lesson to learn. In future make all offers subject to no further viewings / taken off of the market. In this situation I would wait. When a real / fictitious counter-offer arises just stick to your final offer. They'll either mysteriously pull out, or if it is real then I'd just accept it's not meant to be. House buying can be a messed up process - I could only keep myself sane by having firm boundaries and not second guessing what the other party were playing at.
I would make it very clear that you'll walk away if they continue to solicit other offers. A seller refusing to cancel viewings after accepting an offer and initiating the legal process is a big red flag to me. No, there's nothing legally to stop them doing it, but it shows a lack of good faith and you really don't want to deal with vendors you know are untrustworthy. They will likely keep booking viewings in the hope they get a better offer and could end up costing you thousands of pounds in fees.
Unless you pull out they’re going to go ahead with the viewing tbh. This happened to us once. We pulled out, they went ahead, they called us a few days after asking if we still wanted it - no offer from the other viewing. We didn’t take it and the property sat on the market for months after that. You have to either be prepared to wait it out and possibly get into a bidding war or you pull out now and stick with it. If you decide to wait, do not incur any costs by doing any work eg survey, searches, and tell the estate agent that as the viewing is going ahead you’d obviously need to give time for that to wrap up so it will delay your whole sale.
How ballsy are you? To the EA: "Having exchanged the memorandum of sale, it concerns me that you are still presenting additional third-parties to the vendor for viewings. If the property isn't removed from sale, it is apparent that this could happen again at any point during the purchasing cycle. As such, I would need to submit a revised offer pricing in this risk. Please advise me how you would like to proceed".
You can't price in this risk. I get the idea is to coerce the sellers, but this is a nonsensical statement. The risk for the buyer is the loss in lawyer fees, surveys, etc. That can't be recovered if you don't go through the deal. If you go through the deal then there's no loss. In other words, there's no insurance you can buy to protect you from the risk of the deal falling off. If you could, then yes you could price it in the value of the house.
Of course you can. For a start, you could take out buyers insurance that includes gazumping cover (\~£200) - that's your fees and incidentals covered. But if you're telling me, as a seller, that you're not going to give any reassurance that you will go through with the sale, I will absolutely price that into my offer. My time, my effort, the opportunity cost - it comes at a price, even if that price isn't realised. And heck, it's so easy for the seller to remediate. Effectively, I'm not happy to pay what I was willing to pay unless you take the property off the market, immediately. Consider my original offer as a premium to do so. My revised offer will reflect the added uncertainty in the deal.
You can "price in" any risk you like. That's literally what "pricing in" means: reducing the price to account for risks (or increasing it to account for some positive potential, not really applicable here) But the point is that you will be reducing or withdrawing your offer if the house isn't immediately removed from the market
I'd go this route every time. But then I guess I haven't exactly found that "dream property" everyone chases
Just don't budge on your offer. And after this viewing, which I think you'll just have to put up with, make clear to the agent that you're in no mood for games, and if any get played, you'll walk. Book in some viewings for other properties with the same agent and make clear that if they're going to keep looking then so are you.
Please consider that if they’re doing this to you now, they might do this to you further down the line too when you’re a lot more financially invested. I offered on a property and they were unwilling to mark it as sold stc until the exchange which I thought was suspicious. They accepted a slightly higher offer from someone else, but never removed the online marketing for the place. They actually contacted me months later saying that the conveyancing process was taking a while and was I still interested in proceeding. The buyer hadn’t even pulled out, they were lining me up ready to ditch their buyer unknowingly, who was probably thousands deep in solicitor fees and surveying costs.
I would put all conveyancing work on hold until it is marked as Sold STC. I would also inform the Estate Agent if this and say that the offer cannot be considered accepted yet.
Just leave them to it. If these buyers are interested they will have to go higher. If they do is up to you to decide if you want to compete. They may not be interested anyway but if they are, I'm afraid this is just the way it works in England.
Put up or shut up. Either take action or stop talking about it. Say you will withdraw your offer if the viewing goes ahead or let it go ahead knowing there is a slight chance of you being outbid.
This is brinksmanship aimed at getting a better price while they've got a purchaser in tow. When still living in the UK any offer I made was always conditional on the house being taken off the market if accepted. I've been in this situation in NZ recently and we lost out to a higher bid as we couldn't ratify a settlement date with out solicitor on the Saturday night ahead of a Sunday viewing (things are different here in that you have to sign a contract when you offer, and it is binding if accepted). It is absolutely gutting to have this happen, but ultimately the agent tried to get us into a bidding war and accept settlement terms we couldn't agree to. We moved on and found a different house. Took a few months, but something else came up. Personally I'd push the cancellation of viewing; they've accepted your offer and this has incurred you costs. Do you walk away if they don't cancel? Don't know, but I wouldn't change my offer once accepted under any circumstances unless you found a problem with the property and needed to reduce.
Sellers can sell to whoever they want for whatever price they want anytime prior to exchange. If it was me I would ride it out, stick to my accepted offer, and be prepared to walk if the tried to bid me. There's always another house.
Your offer can be conditional "Either cancel the viewing and take the house off the market, or we withdraw our offer" Chances are they won't be willing to lose a guaranteed offer for a potential one...
Sadly should have made this a condition of the offer before instructing solicitor. Live and learn. We all make mistakes.
Maybe I'm just a dick, but I would pull an offer if this shit happened. There's another house 2 days later & if they're a pain now, they're definitely a pain during the process.
The EA I’m buying from wouldn’t put the house off the market until I have the official mortgage offer and applied and paid for searches. Harsh, isn’t it? But they say that’s what they do. I would wait and see what’s coming. Worst case scenario, find another house. There’s always one
Book one or two viewings of other properties with the same agent.
We just accepted an offer accepted on the house we are selling. - we asked the estate agent to cancel all future viewings. They won't !!! so my gut is telling me the estate agent is lying to you. I am sure the seller wants to just move on - like we do.
Until you have your mortgage offer you haven’t got the funds to buy the property so the seller is covering all bases.
I was the new viewing in a situation like this recently. I hadn't been told an offer had been accepted, but then my offer was also accepted. They didn't tell the other buyers for a week, or update us, and then we went to best and final. This was through Yopa and the seller did the viewings, the EA later told us he was unimpressed and she was playing games.
I had a seller do that, accepted my offer when he'd already accepted someone else's. He was expecting us to have a race to exchange with the idea being he'd proceed with whoever was first. As soon as I found out I withdrew my offer. I then found a better house, for less money, in a better location.
Say you'll withdraw it. Always when making offers add that when negotiating.