What if Im gazumped? – and what is gazumping anyway? – does it hurt?
The press love this one, but as usual don’t generally paint a full picture of what is happening. Gazumping is simply where a sale has been agreed (but contrct not yet exchanged), and a third party comes along and offers more. The third party has gazumped the original buyer. Gazumping is a nightmare for the original buyer as they’ve no comeback against either of the other two parties. In order for Gazumping to happen, the seller would have to accept the higher offer – they don’t have to. I know of cases where a seller received higher offers but stuck to the original one because they felt it was the honorable thing to do; I know of other cases where gazumping saved the chain – the original buyer was not taking it seriously and the chain was about to fall through – the new buyer moved ahead quickly and the whole chain completed. Gazumping normally occurs more often in a rising housing market, but probably not as much as the papers would have you believe.
