The following is a comment posted yesterday to a blog I wrote over two years ago:
We put an offer on a home on monday and Seller agent confirmed there are no offers at the time. He didnt respond to us on tuesday and on wedeneday he came back and said they accepted another offer and he has multiple offers on that house on monday. What can we do at this point. I am willing to pay full price on the house, atleast he should have asked us to put the best offer .. It is very very un ethical .IF any attoney or any one who can help me please respond.. Your help is greatly appreacited.Thanks
What would your response be?
Does not sound like the Realtor was looking out for the best interests of the seller if the agent did not deal with the buyers offer.
Sharon,
Well I agree with Bill but there isn't much you can do if there is an executed contract unless you try to take it to arbitration.
Bill - absolutely. Unfortunately I've seen similar situations where sellers were advised to take the agent's clients offer when another offer was higher. This sounded like the buyer was dealing directly with the listing agent, though.
Neal - agreed, there is little they can do about this particular house, unless it's to write a back-up offer in case the accepted one doesn't close - though I wouldn't make the offer directly through this particular listing agent if I were going to do that.
Did the agent actually present the offer? Doesn't sound like they did. In cases like this the buyer will be heartbroken for a while, and pay back is when they find a home they love even more!
Sharon, If the buyer had an agent this may have gone down differently. But other than that I can't really see where the listing agent did anything at all wrong. His job is to look out for the seller and it sounds like he did BUT there is really not enough information to go by.
Seller was not represented well by his agent and you were not presented well by your agent. Communication is the key in makeing sure, and double checking that any stall time in counter isnt due to other offers coming to the table. I do hope the list agent isnt the selling agent.
Best to you... no recourse I can see- unless you do a back up offer and buyer #1 falls thru
Kathy - I've seen times when not only did the buyer find a home they liked better, but the offer the seller accepted fell through.
Bryant - as we all know, it isn't always about the highest price - it can be the terms, the smoothness, etc.
Michele - yes.