My offer was higher than sale price

In 2016 I put in an offer, it was face to face with the agent during the inspection, and he said he'll submit it for consideration, $772k was my offer I remember clearly choosing that number to outbid a potential offer at 770. Didn't hear back from him. Now it's been a year and on a whim I decide to check up on the property and turns out the damn thing sold for $770k.

I guess the lesson here is I should've followed my face to face with an email so I had some written evidence.

I know agents can recommend an offer lower than the highest one if he feels it's in the owner's best interest, but I made several things clear to the guy when I made my offer - it was to be a 66W and I had the entire amount in cash. The guy probably didn't even submit it to the owner and just wanted to close asap.

Maybe I could take him to small claims court or lodge a formal complaint to whatever body is in charge of this sort of thing. What can I do?

 

Are you crazy? What on earth would you be claiming for?

 

Nothing to do. You have no claim. When I sold my first property I received 2 offers. I selected the lower offer of the two because it had a faster settlement and less special conditions.

Did you make an unconditional offer with a fast settlement?

 

Well say it can be proven he didn't submit the offer, then there's financial loss on my end arising from his misconduct. Why so quick to dismiss?

It was unconditional, with normal settlement, because agent didn't mention to me that was what they wanted. If something was mentioned, most likely I would've been flexible (fast settlement, slow settlement, 3 cows and 10 bags of rice on the side etc)

 

You have no contract with the agent. The agent has no responsibility to you to present your offer to the owner.

 

Yes your right

But re agent must present all offers to the seller who is the client?

Also perhaps there is a timeframe for buyers to seek any compensation if the re agent was negligent??

 

That depends on the agreement between the seller and agent, nothing to do with the buyer.

There was never an agreement between buyer and agent, so where would this condition be recorded?

 

Maybe the vendor just liked the other party more. Maybe they didnt want to sell to an investor. What are you hoping for, that the agent will compensate you for capital growth you didnt get on a property you never owned?

 

The legislation in WA states that all offers must be communicated to the seller.

 

@scientist the offer that you presented to the agent, of which he was going to submit to the owner, was this all in writing on the prescribed contract paperwork?

 

Move on.

Why bother and what do you hope to achieve to sue someone?

You have no evidence to back up anything besides what your offer is. You have no idea what the other offer was you only know the price.

Maybe the vendor asked what he purchasers were and the rea didn't provide you a positive comment.

Maybe the person who bought it were first home buyers and the vendor had a soft spot for them.

Move on and waste your energy on other things.

I didn't get a property about a year ago, I had the first offer and wasn't told there was another offer when we were negotiating and found out it sold. I moved on and found something better, upset at the time but no suing people.

 

Well, they do in most states & it could go something like this....

Hi Mr Vendor, I had an offer from a very kooky person, I suggest you ignore it and go with this other one, or wait for another one (insert whatever reason you want or variation), Mr Vendor - ok, your running the show, I am not interested in it if your not (or whatever variation you like).

OP

Even if you could prove they did not mention a peep on the offer, you have no loss ?

Why did you not follow up with the agent shortly after ? Seems you must not have really wanted the place, if you went to court, I would love to know how you would defend that part & what your loss was.

 

Vendors may have other needs that were met by the lower offer.

Early or late settlement. No finance clauses. Maybe they hate 'greedy investors', etc.

A friend of mine locked in a property at market on a 24 month settlement.

The vendor was concerned selling the property would affect their pension.

They also wanted to travel. Her terms were delayed settlent and she would pay well above market rent, which happened to be their weekly travel costs.

Same friend also recently purchased 8 units on market for $1M for $480k on 20 month settlement. Owners wanted to shift the debt, so she offered to pay their interest and outgoings (regional town, property wasn't moving).

I purchased 1 property about $20k under market as the vendor was concerned I would evict his mum who lived at the premises. So the offer came with a rental lease for her for 1 year at below market rent. She is still a tenant at another property I purchased that met her needs (and mine).

Get into the vendors head, find out what is really important for them, and always put it im writting and follow it up with a call.

 

It's also possible that the original purchase price was higher than your offer and it was negotiated down for building and pest reasons.

 

And if I was the other buyer, I would have a contract expiry clause of 24 hours, to put pressure on the sellers to accept quickly.

Now, the seller has a written contract for 770, about to expire OR a verbal offer of 772.

Which one would the sellers take? The old proverb of "a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush" comes to mind.

 

Yes yes privity of contract and all that. This is all a hypothetical exercise at this stage but if I were to do something it wouldn't be under contract law, it would be a tort.

True, but he made it clear at the time nothing's been signed yet and that was why he bothered to take me to an inspection 1 on 1. He wouldn't have wasted his time if it was already under contract.

No, that's one lesson I learned here. Had I sent an email to him right after along the lines to "hey, just repeating myself here in writing, my offer is 772k" he might've behaved differently. My suspicion all this time is the agent didn't even submit my offer. Maybe buyer was a mate, relo, etc.

Right, but none of that was put to me. Guy just nodded his head, said it was a good offer and that he'll get back to me, never did. If anything was put to me, I would've negotiated and most likely matched (24h / long settlement / short settlement / cattle on the side / cash on the side and underreport sale price etc are all easy for me to deal with). It's his total radio silence after our meeting that bugged me and made me go down this entire train of thought.

Anyway most likely it's not worth my time here to do anything, I might do a low effort complaint to whatever regulator I find, but honestly I'll move on. Actually I'll just write him a **** google review. The more I think about this the more this guy ****** me off.

 

Youre not the client. You would have to prove that agents have a general duty of care to anyone who makes an offer. If that were the case, a buyer would be able to sue for damages whenever an agent pushed them for a higher offer. And anyone who missed out on a property in the last couple of years in Sydney would be able to sue. Enjoy your legal fees.

Learn how to make offers better instead.

 

I think if you didn't actually write your offer on a contract then it's not treated as a legitimate offer. In any case, the agent sounds super dodgy as it seems he/she didn't have the seller's best interests at heart. Unfortunately, you'd be wasting your time persuing it further though. Agent can pick any number of reasons why the offer wasn't passed on.

 

Its 2016, if in Sydney, the market is flaming. Agent has a signed contract offer and a slightly higher verbal offer. Agent is thinking 'I could get a couple of k more out of these guys, but would earn me an extra couple hundred dollars. Instead I might spend my time convincing my other client to sell and make 50k'. Your offer just wasn't that important. Thats how it is in a hot market.