Last Wednesday I found myself, mid-afternoon, in The Hope Café, taking time-out to recall and reflect. You may remember that postcard ‘Wait ….’ (PC 465 November 2025), but you’d be wrong to think I was waiting for something ……. just ‘being’.
Towards the end of last year, it must have been November, an ex-Army chum Jim informed me he was moving from his house in Suffolk to somewhere near Cambridge to be closer to grandchildren. He moved in June this year – over six months between agreeing to buy the house and moving in. The wise say that this experience is one of the most stressful transactions we do and in the course of our lifetime we may do it many times. Mention moving house and immediately memories of your own experiences will flood your brain!
Hurst Cottage in Fleet; my first house – much extended!
Just as I was finding out from Google that Stamp Duty, payable to HMG in England when you buy a house, is 5% if its value is between £250k and £925k, I see Sami walk in with Lisa, so I put my thoughts on hold.
“Hey! You two! Haven’t seen you together for weeks. You been away?”
“Had a very lovely week in Salcombe at the end of July. I remember you writing about being there when it was wet and cool; this year it was glorious. So lucky! Enjoyed your postcards about Brighton’s Lanes and North Laines (PC 503 August 2026) – you should get a job working for the tourist section of the council.”
“God forbid! I’m thinking about writing a postcard about buying and selling a house.”
“Well, how long have you got Richard …?”
I interrupt. “Actually, my first experience, buying Hurst Cottage on Victoria Road in Fleet, Hampshire for £29,500 in 1978, was fine.
49a, Cavendish Road, Clapham
My ‘lower ground’ flat on Clapham Common South Side went ahead without memorable angst but the next, a Victorian terraced house on the southern end of Battersea, taught me something.”
“What was that?”
“It’s a personable business and we response accordingly. I had written to the owner, to say how much we were looking forward to completing the purchase, recognised that she had made it a charming property and knowing we would be happy there. About three weeks before we thought we would complete, the estate agent said someone was offering another £10,000 and they had an obligation to forward it to the owner. Eeek! We learned later that she didn’t entertain this new offer as our letter had touched her and she wanted us to have it. So, we were not ‘gazumped’ (note 1)”
A sketch for a Christmas card, prior to a loft conversion! A terraced house is a terraced house; 54 Bramfield Road.
Just as Lisa is about to comment, maybe offer some of her own insights, a stranger comes over:
“Sorry to interrupt” she said, “but couldn’t help but hear you talking about house purchases and thought you might like to know that my husband was a reverse-gazumper. Do you want to hear the story?” and she said it in that way, suggesting we were going to hear it, like it or not!
“I am Sally, by the way. We were getting divorced, thank God, and he was really reluctant to find somewhere for himself to live, so I left and rented to encourage him; not sure it did. But we had a buyer, at our asking price. He explained he hadn’t found somewhere and they should be patient. The weeks rolled into months ….” I could tell this was a painful period for her, recalling how her life was really on hold until he found somewhere. “Then he realised property prices had risen over the period, and asked the prospective buyers, with whom we had already exchanged, ie agree the price, for another 10%!”
“Could he do that?”
“The option for the others was to pull out and after all this time they decided they had no option. I was absolutely disgusted. I complained to the estate agent that I hadn’t agreed this but the estate agent said they didn’t need the agreement of both parties and that they had to forward the instruction.”
“Wow! Sally! That’s really greedy. So sorry for you ….. but thanks for telling us. You a local?”
“No. I live up in Essex …. and must go; love The Hope Café!” and she got up and left.
Sami: “This is England right. This would be very rare in Scotland, where the agreement to buy becomes legally binding much earlier in the process through formal letters between solicitors called ‘concluded missives’. Additionally, sellers must legally provide a single survey and energy report, so that prospective buyers can’t argue that their survey found ‘x’ and ‘y’ and therefore would ask for a reduction in their offer.”
“I had that problem as the executor of my maiden aunt’s estate, selling her house on the north side of Clapham Common. Someone had come along, very quickly offered the asking price, and just when the sale was due to be completed, claimed his survey had highlighted major problems and wanted a huge reduction, some 20% if I remember correctly, imagining he had me by the ‘short and curlies’ and I would agree. I found out this individual had a reputation for doing this …… so didn’t agree and put the house back on the market. But this was a probate sale so I was slightly personally detached!
Statistically, once an offer is accepted it takes an average of four months to complete; Jim’s took six. One in three house sales fall through before exchange. The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has said: ‘We’re stopping gazundering by introducing legally binding agreements that prevent buyers from walking away at the last minute without a valid reason, with fines for those who do.’ But not until 2029!
Our Hove apartment is in this magnificent 1890s building
I could tell that Lisa wanted to add some of her own experiences, but I had to dash, as I had to fashion a pinhole viewing device for the evening’s solar eclipse!”
Richard 14th August 2026
Hove
PS The only other house I owned was in the village of Rowledge, for 15 months.
Note 1 A gazumper is a person who steps in with a higher offer on a property after the seller has already accepted an offer from someone else, but before the contracts are legally signed.
postcards 