[katetomson]

I've had my house on the market now for about 12 months and it's finally had a solid offer, the buyer is seriously interested and has already got soliciters involed etc.

since the house was first marketed it has dropped from £240,000 to £199,995 and the buyer offered in the region of £180,000, quite low. I phoned the other agencys to take the property off their books and one said as the offer is very low he'll actively market it at a lower price to see if he can get more than £180,000

Now, as I've accepted an offer and instructed soliciters to go and do their thing am I ok to still market the property, the buyer was insistant that the house was removed from the market if we accepted the £180,000 offer but no contracts have been signed yet so am I OK to still take viewings, I have a viewing with another agency tomorrow who, the agency says, is aware of the circumstances and is very eager to view.

Any ideas, would you take the £180,000 on the off chance that the whole thing goes tits up or leave the house on the market until contracts are signed even thought the buyer insisted it be removed.

This all makes me slightly brain dead and I can't get my head round it really.

[movlabz]

As far as I am aware, until you hand them the keys, its your house. In which case, you can do what you like.

Having said that, you may be liable to cover their legal costs thus far.

[katetomson]

As far as I am aware, until you hand them the keys, its your house. In which case, you can do what you like.

Having said that, you may be liable to cover their legal costs thus far.

Yikes, and the buyer is some kind of financial broker for a large firm in London that has there own law firm which they are using, think I'll see how the viewing goes tomorrow, last thing I wan't is to mess around now and lose the buyer I have that seems totally serious and risk having a new buyer that might not be, but could I turn down another few thousand .

[Heacechig]

Unfortunately in England, until contracts are exchanged and keys handed over, the seller can more or less do what they like.
To the same kind of degree so can the buyer - I've known a buyer who agreed to buy, went through all of the motions and then with literally days to go until the exchange said they were pulling out unless the price of the house was dropped £5k.

It is all a question of morals to be honest.
When we were house hunting 4 years ago we found the house we wanted.
We made an offer on the condition that it be taken "off the market" as soon as our offer was accepted.
If that actually happened I don't know, I do however know that the "For Sale" signs were replaced with "Sold" very soon after we made the offer and still very early on in the actual buying process.

[katetomson]

We made an offer on the condition that it be taken "off the market" as soon as our offer was accepted.
If that actually happened I don't know, I do however know that the "For Sale" signs were replaced with "Sold" very soon after we made the offer and still very early on in the actual buying process.

We accepted the offer yesterday and the Sold sign is on the board already, I think I'll see how this viewing goes tomorrow and then remove it completely from sale