House selling - When a deal isn't a deal.

[Alan Medic]

My colleague has been house hunting for the perfect place for her and her family for around 18 months. During that time they have accepted offers on their own place 3 times having put the house back on the market. In the first two cases the buyers were prepared to wait until my colleague had her perfect house only to find their survey's had been a waste of money.

This seems wrong to me as it's unfair to the potential buyer. I've never actually sold a place in my life so it's easy for me to think my colleague is just being greedy. From the little I know this scenario would not happen in Scotland due to different regulations/laws in place. Why not here?

[womanofdulwich]

I think in Scotland if you want to buy a house you just put your best bid in, and everyone that does so has to have their own survey/valuation first (it is binding bid)- so say 5 people want a house- 5 surveys and only one is used, and 4 are wasted of money. That's why everyone likes chain free sales here.

[donaldr]

In Scotland The seller commissions the survey, but you have the right to rely on it. If you lose a significant amount of money because the report isn?t accurate or complete enough to meet the legal requirements, then you have a right to damages.

[red devil]

The Scottish system is very much a sellers market. The property tends to be undervalued like an auction, with the successful sealed bid often way over the advertised 'valuation'. The legally binding bid does cut out gazumping/gazundering though, but as has already been pointed out, the buyers have to fork out up-front costs for surveys regardless of whether their bid is successful or not. I saw an episode of Location x 3 recently where they were in Edinburgh, and P&K put in bids over the phone as per their standard programme format, which isn't the Scottish way, so not sure what was going on then, perhaps agreed beforehand for TV 'entertainment' purposes...

[Alan Medic]

What I was getting at was my colleague ditched two buyers as her estate agent told her that she would get more now. Is that fair game having agreed to sell, twice?

[red devil]

It's not a nice thing to do, but it's legal in England & Wales...

[Azalea]

Prices are going up? Where is her house?

[womanofdulwich]

Please understand that an estate agents fees are linked to the sale price. So if they think they can increase their fee they will suggest this.

[Mustard]

If you are selling for a commission of say 1%, and the owner wants another ?50k for example, then the commission isn't that much more for the agent, so not really worth it for them, but of course it is for the owners. It's really going to be the owner driving the increase.

[????]

Wrong WoD, The estate agent benefits from getting the turnover so get it out the door as quick as possible rather than the pretty negligible difference on price as mustard says. In reality they'd rather the deal done than an extra 10k on the price.

[tomskip]

When prices are rising very fast, the sellers looking to buy (your colleague Alan Medic) can find themselves priced out of the market during the course of their search. So while they might want to honour the original price agreed with their buyers, they could then find that they simply don't have the money they need for their next purchase. It's a reason for gazumping and no, to the vast majority of estate agents the loss of that sale is simply not worth it in terms of the extra ?50 or whatever.

So in a rising market, beware of the seller who does not have their onward move sorted. If you have a choice of two properties, always favour the one at the end of a chain if you possibly can.

[womanofdulwich]

not so ??? if they can find a new buyer and convince then to sell with them and so get a stack more agency fees and they control all the chain. I have come across this.