Sarah was packing up her family's three-bedroom terrace, excited to move to a four-bedroom house in the countryside. Then the phone rang. Her 'befuddled' estate agent told her the buyers had dropped their offer by £15,000 — the day before contracts were due to be exchanged.
"It was awful, your heart just drops to your stomach," says Sarah, who asked not to use her real name. She and her husband had already paid legal fees on the sale and the purchase of her parents' detached home, plus removal fees. Accepting the lower price would leave them out of pocket; refusing risked losing the buyer entirely, collapsing the chain and potentially losing the house they wanted to buy.
“Buyers cut offer by £15,000 day before exchange; victim calls gazundering 'awful' as reforms urged.”
"I can't even begin to go through the financial consequences [if we lost the sale]," she says.
Sarah had fallen victim to gazundering — a rare but growing problem in England and Wales, according to the Conveyancing Association. It happens when a buyer lowers their agreed offer just before contracts are exchanged, exploiting the fact that in England, Wales and Northern Ireland an offer is not legally binding until that point. On average it takes 120 days to complete a sale, and one in three fall through before exchange, costing sellers £400m and the wider economy £1.5bn each year, the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government estimates.
After speaking to her father and husband, Sarah decided to put the house back on the market the same day. The next morning her buyers "went running into the estate agent's office saying they were happy to proceed with the agreed sale price".
"Gazundering is actually awful. It's not just a business deal. It's my children's home and the fact that nothing's been done about it is ridiculous," she says.
The Conveyancing Association is calling for government reforms aimed at tackling gazundering and other buying and selling issues to be brought in "without delay" instead of 2029 as planned. The government says its planned changes would cut the average completion time by four weeks and save the average first-time buyer £650.
