x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.
Graham Awards

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Revealed - the worst location in the country for gazumping

Gazumping is alive and well in much of the country, despite the slowdown in the property market, according to new research by Phil Spencer’s consumer service MoveIQ. 

An analysis of over a million property transactions undertaken by the site with PropTech firm Gazeal shows that the worst area for gazumping is Sheffield. 

Some 35 per cent of would-be buyers in the South Yorkshire city are gazumped, more than double the 16 per cent average for England and Wales.

Advertisement

Even areas where prices are falling are now seeing high levels of gazumping, the research claims. 

The second worst hotspot is Maidstone in Kent, where nearly 32 per cent of buyers were gazumped – despite the fact that average prices fell by one per cent in the year to January.

“For anyone who thought gazumping vanished with the runaway price rises of a few years ago, our findings will come as a reality check. Gazumping is alive and well, and still causing heartache for tens of thousands of buyers across England and Wales” claims Spencer.

“Britain’s fragmented property market is throwing up huge regional extremes. In hotspots where prices are still rising fast, sellers can be tempted to go back on their word to a buyer if they get a better offer elsewhere. Meanwhile, in slow markets, the lack of homes for sale can lead sellers to leave would-be buyers in the lurch if they get a last minute offer from someone else.

“But whatever the market conditions, the real culprit is the legal blind spot in the way homes are bought and sold in England and Wales. A legal system that lets sellers leave buyers high and dry weeks, or even months, after accepting their offer is clearly not fit for purpose.”

 

Last week Spencer come out in favour of legally binding reservation agreements and digital legal packs in a bid to reduce fall-throughs and gazumping. 

At the time he said that whatever the market conditions, the real danger to many buyers and sellers in the current transaction system was the fact that buyers or sellers could abandon a sale a day before the exchange.

  • icon

    That seems unfeasibly high to me... I am seeing little or no evidence in my local area....if Phil Spencer wants to lead a campaign to help kerb gazumping he may be better turning his focus on the abysmal service and delays propagated by the conveyancing industry. Until the legal profession lose their arrogant stand on being paid regardless of transactional success the delays caused by them allow buyers and seller far too much time to get up to mischief...maybe they could explain why an average transaction in West Sussex is taking 10 weeks? I suspect as always the conveyancing profession will blame anybody but themselves, probably from the sanctuary if the golf course!

    Bryan Mansell

    Andrew, take a look at Gazeal.co.uk we are trying to help speed up this process.

     
  • icon

    Put non refundable deposits in place.
    Only refundable if survey turns up something detrimental to property as described.
    5% or 10% should be acceptable to any serious purchaser.

    Bryan Mansell

    Steve, this is exactly what we are doing at Gazeal.co.uk

     
icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal
sign up