Relief For Home Buyers As The Government May Ban 'gazumping'

[rollover]

Gazumping could be banned by the Government

It has emerged that officials have held private meetings with industry to discuss bringing forward the point at which house sales become legal, in line with Scotland. The radical move would prevent millions of British housing sales falling through as 18pc, or around 200,000 transactions collapse each year. A major reason is a plague of buyers outbidding others who have already put down an offer, a practice commonly known as "gazumping".

Just a little bit too late.

[GreenDevil]

Swings and roundabouts. Works both ways when you selling and buying.

Making an offer legally binding is a stupid idea. You make a offer to an agent and you a legally bound to buy the property. I cant see that working, apart with some finanical deposit being made. Any decent agent will take the property off the market once an offer is received.

All they have to do is ensure that agents dont allow any higher offers, whenever the buyer buys and the seller sells should be set at exchange contracts, not at offer stage.

[onlyme2]

Swings and roundabouts. Works both ways when you selling and buying.

Making an offer legally binding is a stupid idea. You make a offer to an agent and you a legally bound to buy the property. I cant see that working, apart with some finanical deposit being made. Any decent agent will take the property off the market once an offer is received.

All they have to do is ensure that agents dont allow any higher offers, whenever the buyer buys and the seller sells should be set at exchange contracts, not at offer stage.

Probably a desperate attempt to get people to buy regardless of what is found in the survey. Whenever the govt want ot get invovled it can only be for one reason - to generally raise prices and ****** over more people on the banker's scam.

Edited May 10, 2016 by onlyme2

[porca misèria]

Entering into a binding contract early is more dangerous for the buyer than the seller. The surveyor or the lawyer could find a showstopper problem!

I'd prefer a partial commitment. Buyer and seller each pay something into escrow - enough to cover the other's reasonable costs. Say, 1% of the agreed price. If someone later pulls out without good reason[1,2], they forfeit that deposit to the other party.

[1] to be resolved by an arbitrator (like tenant deposits) in case of dispute.

[2] or a "constructive dismissal" variant of killing the transaction by delaying forever just to avoid pulling out.

[Executive Sadman]

Just make it a legal requirement for all offers to be made public as in repossessions. Buyers and sellers both know where they stand. No dodgy estate agents ripping off/defrauding little old ladies.

[TheCountOfNowhere]

Are they banning gan-undering more to the point

[cashinmattress]

[spunko2010]

Hang on. It's being done on the pretense that it'll reduce the number of failed transactions - 18% of all sales fail apparently due to gazumping, or so it says. Can't make head nor tail of that explanation... surely if a new, higher offer has been made and accepted, it's not classed as 'fallen through'?

Something doesn't compute among the ********.

[“Nasty Piece of work”]

The Government hope to achieve this by driving the number of transactions down to nil, so far they are doing sterling work, and the plebs should lap it up.

[SarahBell]

Just make it a legal requirement for all offers to be made public as in repossessions. Buyers and sellers both know where they stand. No dodgy estate agents ripping off/defrauding little old ladies.

I like that idea.

[GreenDevil]

Just make it a legal requirement for all offers to be made public as in repossessions. Buyers and sellers both know where they stand. No dodgy estate agents ripping off/defrauding little old ladies.

The agents would hate that, they wouldnt be able to BS all the buyers and fantasy bid the place up.

[Fully Detached]

Less regulation, not more. Get the bloody government out of the housing market and let it do its own thing.

[catmandu]

It works pretty well in Scotland. You get your finance in order, sort out a solicitor and when you are ready to buy you put in your offer.

If accepted, that's it. No more worrying on either side about whether someone will pull out last minute.

Takes away a lot of the stress of moving house. Wouldn't have it any other way.

[ARIMA]

It works pretty well in Scotland. You get your finance in order, sort out a solicitor and when you are ready to buy you put in your offer.

If accepted, that's it. No more worrying on either side about whether someone will pull out last minute.

Takes away a lot of the stress of moving house. Wouldn't have it any other way.

What happens if there is a dispute over something that comes up in the survey? I.e. Buyers wants £10k off seller offers £5k etc.

[Haventaclue]

Agree its a good thing and works perfectly well in Scotland.

[jiltedjen]

The agents would hate that, they wouldnt be able to BS all the buyers and fantasy bid the place up.

i do hate agents. they try and get you on an emotional level. its always lies. public recording of offers would be nice. would be easier to see what a place is worth if you could see a tally of offers. an auction type sale would be better for fair value.

almost wish there was no such thing as asking prices to start with, just a market value. to prevent kite flyers and time wasters.

95% of the stuff on the market is in effect 'not on the market' as its crazy kite flying, or the owners wont accept its real value.

an auction system would be much better.

would also be nice if you could have public buyers profiles, so people who are selling houses can seek out buyers. It would of made the last few years more comfortable if you could see dumb BTL trying to buy everything, you could of stopped worrying about this website and just sat out waiting for the inevitable blow up. Not much point looking at houses when there is still new interest only lending going on.

[GreenDevil]

Auctions arent much better, usually the small print says 'auctioneer reserves the right to bid on the buyers behalf to the reserve(usually set too high)!

Edited May 10, 2016 by GreenDevil

[catmandu]

What happens if there is a dispute over something that comes up in the survey? I.e. Buyers wants £10k off seller offers £5k etc

Putting in your offer via the solicitor isn't final. After the offer is accepted, you do the survey and based on the results of that go ahead with signing the missives which are final. The key to the process is that once your offer is accepted, both sides are under pressure from their solicitors to get the missives done quickly. Since this is generally in both sides interest, it happens fast - a few days...maybe a couple of weeks. If seller or buyer pulls out after missives are signed, there are financial penalties.

In a bubble market it used to be common for interested parties to do the survey before putting an offer in. This was expensive if you had to do it on many houses but with a flatter market and the introduction of home reports, it is much less common.

I have also read (not 100% sure on this info though) that if your offer is accepted but you don't go ahead with the missives for a spurious reason, the solicitor will no longer work with you (and you may still have to pay them).

[Monkey]

or it could be to stop Estate agents making up a higher offer from a fictional buyer, in the hope to get the real buyer to raise their offer....but I guess that some people walk away refusing to pay or not being able to raise the extra money.

[Riedquat]

or it could be to stop Estate agents making up a higher offer from a fictional buyer, in the hope to get the real buyer to raise their offer....but I guess that some people walk away refusing to pay or not being able to raise the extra money.

Hope so. They tried that one on me. Well, probably, I can't actually prove it but when they phoned up again a few days later with "It's fallen through, are you still interested?" I was rather suspicious.

[GreenDevil]

Agents like to get low offers, even though they know it wont sell, they then use this and quote 'we've already ready received an offer, youll need make a good offer to secure it. Its reverse psychology so making lower offers also tends to push price up. This i why i never bother low offers, agents use it to pump up the prices, i will only make a low offer if i know im the only interested party, prolly why im still looking lol

[ccc]

I am pretty sure in Scotland nearly every offer is 'subject to survey'.

If you change your mind I am sure it would be fairly simple to get a friendly builder/electrician/plumber or whatever to state 'in their opinion' x could be a big issue in the future.

Offer retracted.

Edited May 12, 2016 by ccc

[spunko2010]

Agents like to get low offers, even though they know it wont sell, they then use this and quote 'we've already ready received an offer, youll need make a good offer to secure it. Its reverse psychology so making lower offers also tends to push price up. This i why i never bother low offers, agents use it to pump up the prices, i will only make a low offer if i know im the only interested party, prolly why im still looking lol

They're probably just lying, there is no evidence of previous offers, only their word. Best thing to do is make the offer, tell them that you aren't interested in other offers and will walk away if another higher phantom bid mysteriously arrives. If they say it's too low, then fine, walk away or leave it on the table. You need to be offering below asking prices - majority of people are according to that report last week.