Gazumped!!!

[sgtivypie]

We put in an offer 2 weeks ago on a house and it was accepted and the buyer and estate agents said it would be taken off the market. Then today the estate agent rang us and said that someone else had offered the full asking price and that we would have to go higher if we didn't want to lose the house!! We are now having to offer over the asking price in order to keep the house and not lose all our solicitors and survey fees. Can they do this if they said the property was being taken off the market?? Can anyone offer any advice?
When I went into the estate agent to increase our offer the woman logged onto the property details and said that our offer had been accepted so why did we want to increase it. When I told her about the phonecall she looked again and said "oh yes, there it is". I have a funny feeling there was no higher offer and that they were just trying to get us to increase ours. Which worked! Is there anyway of finding out if I'm correct?

Thanks
Rebecca

[brian]

Worth discussing this with a solicitor - if the property was agreed to go off market after the offer, then they are in breach of that agreement - though I suspect it would have been a verbal agreement which is harder to work with.

Be aware that a lot of estate agents are % based which means some unscrupulous ones will think nothing of creating pretend offers to raise the cost and fees.

Think of it this way - how much money would you "lose" from fees as opposed to money you'd lose through paying more?

Tell the estate agent you're happy to walk away if they won't accept your offer. Presuming, of course, there are other similar properties to look at.