I was ‘gazumped’ and lost our dream home – £1,000 was poured down the drain

After retirement, Annette and Pete Mackay decided to downsize from their four-bed Victorian terrace in Bury. The pair, who’d lived in the house for just over a decade with regular visits from their three children and four grandchildren, put their property on the market in spring 2021 when Pete, 78, was in the early stages of dementia. While sad to leave their “forever home”, they were excited at the prospect of having a more manageable space, with a lovely garden to spend time in. The couple found their dream retirement property in nearby Tottington a fortnight later. “It was a three-bed terrace with a small garden and was on a popular walking route,” says Annette, 72. They made and secured an offer in the high £200,000s within weeks. With the property “sold, subject to contract” (SSC), the pair engaged solicitors and commissioned reports and a survey. But a month on, after shelling out an initial £500, they received a call. “The estate agent said the buyers were withdrawing the house from sale for personal reasons,” she recalls. The couple were heartbroken. “We were devastated, but also felt we weren’t being told the whole story.” It was only two weeks later when she passed a local estate agent’s window that Annette found the truth. “The house – our dream house – was listed as ‘sold’ through another estate agent, for around £20,000 more than the original asking price.” Shorts Buyers who’ve been gazumped – when a property sale is withdrawn after another buyer offers a higher price after a sale has been agreed – will understand the emotional and financial devastation this brings. Unable to find a suitable property in time, the couple then lost their original buyer and the entire chain fell apart. Worse, having been confident of their move, the couple had already begun to pack up their home of over a decade. “We’d had to get rid of most of the furniture which was too big for a downsized house,” says Annette. “We were living in empty, echoey rooms and just existing. Pete was in the early stages of dementia, so I had to deal with much of this on my own.” “Many sellers and buyers assume that, when they agree to a price with the estate agent, they have reached some sort of binding agreement,” says Stephen Oldridge, managing partner at Bridge McFarland LLP. “However, it is only binding when ‘exchange of contracts’ takes place… the buyer has paid the deposit and the moving day (completion) is agreed. Up until exchange, either party can pull out of the deal without penalty.” Sadly, the Mackays’ experience isn’t unique. A study by Market Financial Solutions found that 37 per cent of buyers had experienced gazumping at least once between 2014 and 2024. Gazundering, where buyers drop their price late in the process when sellers are committed, was also a concern, with 29 per cent of participants surveyed affected. Government proposals announced in June 2026 include plans to require parties to exchange contracts earlier in the buying process, with the aim of bringing them into force by 2029. This system, similar to that already used in Scotland, is hoped to bring greater certainty to both buyers and sellers at an earlier stage. “‘Gazumping is often market-driven: if the market’s rising, demand is rising for a property and the seller is tempted to accept an offer for sometimes thousands more,” says estate agent and former residential chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors Jeremy Leaf. However, Leaf believes that legislation to tie buyers and sellers into a contract sooner may not be the answer. “Who will decide what is reasonable when it comes to rescinding on a contract? How independent and fair will it be?” “The seller is under no obligation to accept a higher offer (and many sellers don’t on principle), but the temptation is understandable where the new offer is significantly higher than the price originally agreed,’ explains Oldridge. Estate agents are legally bound to approach sellers with any such offers, in the interests of transparency, unless they have been expressly asked not to do so. But despite the large additional sums sometimes at play, it’s not always advisable to give in to the temptation. “Trust forms a big part of our present method,” says Leaf. And with properties sometimes tied into large chains, any delay can have far-reaching consequences. “The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” Oldridge agrees. “The new legislation also seeks to make arrangements binding at a much earlier stage to prevent gazumping. While this sounds great in many ways, conditional contracts are much more complicated than people often appreciate and buyers and sellers will need to fully understand the legal commitment they will be making when agreeing offers. The devil, as the saying goes, is very much in the detail.” For Annette, even five years on, the additional months of stress have left scars. “We found another buyer and made an offer on a three-bed terrace with a bigger garden in the autumn, but the chain was huge. The purchase completed about three months later, but even on the day of completion there was some delay; someone holding a seller to ransom for additional money. It was terrible. It’s two to three people away from you in the chain but you all lose.” “Dealing with people who’d lie to your face destroys your faith in human nature. I lost over £1,000 in solicitors’ fees and surveys on purchases that didn’t go ahead.” (£500 on the surveys and searches, but another several hundred on solicitors’ fees on the failed sale and purchase.) Sadly, her husband’s dementia progressed rapidly, and while they had “a few really nice summers of enjoying our garden”, in December 2025, he had to move to a residential care home. “We thought we’d have more time to recover,” says Annette. “Pete hasn’t had the joy of this place.”