Identity of counter bidder

Logo · 13-07-2018 12:23pm #1

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

davo10 · 13-07-2018 12:24pm

Logo wrote: »

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

Is this a joke?

Logo · 13-07-2018 12:26pm

Sadly no.

bren2002 · 13-07-2018 12:27pm

Of course the estate agent won't provide the other name, this is completely normal.
Even after the contracts are signed, the buyer will never know the details of other bidders

amcalester · 13-07-2018 12:27pm

Seems very unprofessional of the EA to agree to that. It's none of your friends business who the other bidder was (even if your friend is worried about phantom bids).

She can pull out until contracts are signed, or if she thinks there was no other bidder reduce her bid.

dudara · 13-07-2018 12:29pm

Why should the EA disclose the name of the other bidder? In fact, it could be a breach of data privacy laws if they did. Your friend should focus on securing the property and really not be bothered with the identity of the other bidder.

bren2002 · 13-07-2018 12:30pm

amcalester wrote: »

Seems very unprofessional of the EA to agree to that.

I suspect a misinterpreted comment, whether consciously or not.

average_runner · 13-07-2018 12:32pm

Logo wrote: »

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

It would break the new data code. Your friend is very naive to believe the estate agent. Either they want the property or not and they are paying the market price.

amcalester · 13-07-2018 12:33pm

bren2002 wrote: »

I suspect a misinterpreted comment, whether consciously or not.

Yeah, could be the name of the seller rather than the other bidder.

mvl · 13-07-2018 12:33pm

i am confused about something here: is it normal for a buyer to pay the deposit before a bidding process completes ?
i thought the deposit is only paid by the person that gets the bid ?

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 12:35pm

Logo wrote: »

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

If the EA promised that, they were unprofessional and lying, as it is not something they are in a position to do. And your friend shouldn’t count on getting the name after signing contracts either.

Assuming they still haven’t signed contracts at their solicitor’s, your friend can certainly pull-out and doesn’t need to provide any justification. But if they are happy with the price agreed upon, the name of the other bidder should be of no relevance to decide whether to proceed or not.

LiamoSail · 13-07-2018 12:36pm

If an estate agent gave out my info to someone I had been bidding against, I'd be pretty annoyed and would certainly be following up with the estate agent.

Logo · 13-07-2018 12:43pm

Okay. I honestly believed that this was a new way for EA's to do business with some transparency. Thanks for the info. I will pass it on to her.

SNNUS · 13-07-2018 1:01pm

Why is she hung up about the other bidder? She got the house so maybe she should put her energy into that..

Claw Hammer · 13-07-2018 1:17pm

Logo wrote: »

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

If she is paid a booking deposit, but not signed the contract and paid over the balance of 10%, she is entitled to withdraw from the sale and get the booking deposit back. This applies even if she has just changed her mind and not on account of any other factor.

Logo · 13-07-2018 1:33pm

SNNUS wrote: »

Why is she hung up about the other bidder?

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

awec · 13-07-2018 1:42pm

Logo wrote: »

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

By far the biggest conspiracy theory on this forum is that there is an epidemic of EAs just inventing fake bidders to push up prices by a few grand.

If she wants the house, bid as far as she thinks its worth. No point melting your head with the notion that you could get it cheaper if you could prove the other person didn't exist (because they do exist).

davo10 · 13-07-2018 1:44pm

Logo wrote: »

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

What? Nobody forced her to bid, in all my years of looking at this forum, not one poster has been able to provide evidence of the elusive phantom bidder.

If she feels it is not worth what she bid, she can pull out before contract is signed. She'll feel a bit of a knob if the house sells for more or she has to pay more for another property.

LiamoSail · 13-07-2018 1:44pm

Logo wrote: »

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

And what outcome is she expecting? The estate agent to throw their hands to heaven, admit this canny customer has out smarted them and offer a refund of thousands??

In what circumstances is she seriously expecting to now get the property for cheaper through that estate agent ?

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 1:46pm

Logo wrote: »

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

TBH there will always be tactics and getting a name won't guarantee nothing dodgy happened. What matters is that she thinks the price is right, how it came to that price is irrelevant.

One personal bad experience: after bidding for some time on a place, an EA told us there was just one other bidder and the seller wanted to go sale agreed quickly, so they were asking each party to give there maximum offer by a certain deadline and the highest offer would be accepted.

We submitted our offer and were eventually told it was the lowest one so we moved on. A few weeks later we saw the selling price on the property price register and it was clear we had been taken for a ride: the price was just 100 euros over our offer, for a property going for several hundred thousands and where the bid increments had been 1000 or 2000 euros. No way it could have happened by chance and clearly for whatever reason the EA wanted to sell to the other bidder but wanted first to generate a significantly increased offer from us to submit it to them and get them to pay that price.

CeilingFly · 13-07-2018 1:52pm

Logo wrote: »

Because the other bidder might not exist and she might have paid thousands over the actual house value for no reason besides the EA's tactics

If she's paid well over what the house is worth, then that's her fault for being so foolish.

Too many people have convinced themselves a certain house is their perfect house and then go way way over the value.

There are plenty of houses out there and tons coming on stream, tell her to pull out, take a deep breath and set limits.

As for an EA making up bids - most are on 1% commission. An extra 10k is €100 extra - if caught making false bids, they lose their licence and fined 10k (it has happened).

So unlikely, - just another person with the same thoughts of believing it "the house" and the must get it.

Logo · 13-07-2018 2:21pm

Logo wrote: »

friend made a final bid on a property and was accepted. During the bidding EA agreed to provide name and number of other person bidding against her. Booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose identity of the other bidder until contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice? Thanks

So I assume that it's not a such great idea to revert back to an earlier bid?

testicles · 13-07-2018 2:24pm

This post has been deleted.

Logo · 13-07-2018 2:28pm

CeilingFly wrote: »

As for an EA making up bids -. if caught making false bids, they lose their licence and fined 10k (it has happened).

Unless the EA can provide names & numbers - I would be interested if you can provide a source for that 'fact'.

Fol20 · 13-07-2018 2:28pm

I highly doubt an ea would ever give out personal info. They would be breaking so many privacy laws and could even risk their license. If you believe there is a phantom bid and you don’t think the property is worth the accepted bid, just back out now. Phantom bids are a thing of the past. Ea have very little to gain and everything to loose for doing something stupid like that. Remember that the ea get about 1/2pc of sale price so an extra 10k is in affect a max extra commission is a 100-200e and in the grander scale of the volume of sales is very little. They are more interested in closing out a sale as so many of them collapse.

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 2:29pm

Logo wrote: »

So I assume that it's not a such great idea to revert back to an earlier bid?

After paying the booking deposit? No. Exception would be if a surveyor uncovers issues with the property which were not obviously apparent and would be costly to fix, then it would be fair enough for a buyer to go back to the seller and say that they will go ahead only if the price is reduced by a certain figure and otherwise they will pull out.

But if your friend goes back to the agent saying they want to revert back to an earlier offer out of nowhere and after paying the deposit, I assume they will be told to either stick with their last offer or pull-out.

Fol20 · 13-07-2018 2:30pm

Logo wrote: »

Unless the EA can provide names & numbers - I would be interested to know how and can you provide a source for that 'fact'.

Most of them now only accept offer via email to cover them self, they may also have a ledger or the reception in some case might accept bids but you would normally have multiple parties at play

Logo · 13-07-2018 2:57pm

Fol20 wrote: »

Most of them now only accept offer via email to cover them self, they may also have a ledger or the reception in some case might accept bids but you would normally have multiple parties at play

I assume you haven't purchased many properties lately.

mvl · 13-07-2018 3:47pm

Bob24 wrote: »

TBH there will always be tactics and getting a name won't guarantee nothing dodgy happened. What matters is that she thinks the price is right, how it came to that price is irrelevant.

One personal bad experience: after bidding for some time on a place, an EA told us there was just one other bidder and the seller wanted to go sale agreed quickly, so they were asking each party to give there maximum offer by a certain deadline and the highest offer would be accepted.

We submitted our offer and were eventually told it was the lowest one so we moved on. A few weeks later we saw the selling price on the property price register and it was clear we had been taken for a ride: the price was just 100 euros over our offer, for a property going for several hundred thousands and where the bid increments had been 1000 or 2000 euros. No way it could have happened by chance and clearly for whatever reason the EA wanted to sell to the other bidder but wanted first to generate a significantly increased offer from us to submit it to them and get them to pay that price.

my experience was that the property register update can be months later, not weeks later. can it be that these other bidder paid cash, so were preferred because of that ?

blue note · 13-07-2018 4:05pm

awec wrote: »

By far the biggest conspiracy theory on this forum is that there is an epidemic of EAs just inventing fake bidders to push up prices by a few grand.

If she wants the house, bid as far as she thinks its worth. No point melting your head with the notion that you could get it cheaper if you could prove the other person didn't exist (because they do exist).

There's absolutely no way that doesn't happen. The financial motivation for it to happen is minimal - the extra commission on an extra 10k even wouldn't be significant. But if estate agents are promising prices to vendors they want to meet them for their reputations. And it must be incredibly difficult to prove that an offer was made up.

What I expect happens far more often however, is that the vendor or their friend bids on the property. Keep on just outbidding the others and when they pull out you pull out a week later too and offer it to them for their max. Again, I can see why this would happen and can't see why it wouldn't so therefore it must happen.

And as regards telling people not to worry about the price they pay other than do they think the house is worth it - this attitude boils my p1ss altogether. I might feel a place is reasonable value at €450k. But I'm only content paying that if there's someone else content to pay €445 or whatever. I'm certainly not content to be effectively conned into paying it by an unscrupulous vendor or EA.

Also, I think the most common fake bid is other bidders staying in when they don't intend to follow through. People bidding on a few places and worrying about whether to take them after they're the highest bidder, as opposed to actually thinking about whether they're prepared to pay what they're offering.

TheBoyConor · 13-07-2018 4:14pm

GDPR.
They wouldn't be able to give you the other bidders details without their consent. They'd be in deep **** of they did.

Also why would they give you the details? What's to say you wouldn't bully or intimidate them or beat the shyt out of them to withdraw their offer or not bid? Because there are some people who would be like that.

evolving_doors · 13-07-2018 4:21pm

I reckon the EA mistook the bidder as looking for the Sellers name and address.

TheChizler · 13-07-2018 5:06pm

TheBoyConor wrote: »

GDPR.

Or even our old data protection laws would cover this.

13-07-2018 5:30pm

Logo wrote: »

Spoke to friend who made a final bid on a property and it was accepted. During the bidding process the EA agreed to provide name and number of the other person bidding against her. The booking deposit was paid but the EA is not willing to disclose the identity of the other bidder until the contracts have been signed. Is she now entitled to pull out of the purchase and what is common practice in this situation? Thanks

It sounds like your friend hasn't signed the Contracts for Sale yet - she has only paid a booking deposit to the EA - Correct? If so she can pull out and get her deposit back without giving any reason.There is no way any reasonable or reputable EA will give her the identity and contact details of other bidders, and she doesn't need them if she wants to withdraw from the sale.

Fol20 · 13-07-2018 5:43pm

Logo wrote: »

I assume you haven't purchased many properties lately.

You assumed incorrectly. I deal with ea on a regular basis so that I keep up to date with how market performs

Fol20 · 13-07-2018 5:49pm

blue note wrote: »

And as regards telling people not to worry about the price they pay other than do they think the house is worth it - this attitude boils my p1ss altogether. I might feel a place is reasonable value at €450k. But I'm only content paying that if there's someone else content to pay €445 or whatever. I'm certainly not content to be effectively conned into paying it by an unscrupulous vendor or EA.

Also, I think the most common fake bid is other bidders staying in when they don't intend to follow through. People bidding on a few places and worrying about whether to take them after they're the highest bidder, as opposed to actually thinking about whether they're prepared to pay what they're offering.

Well obviously people would like to pay as little as possible but I mean that if the price you are paying is about the going rate for your area, the property is the best you have found for your needs and it seems like a right fit then go ahead with the purchase. Likewise it’s an emotional decision for many as they could be living in it for the rest of their lives and create memories in it so yes if it accept offer feels right, go for it. One mans trash is another mans gold so each to their own.

I have to agree with you on the second point, Iv had several call backs after a failed sale and then their coming back to see if I’m still interested at my highest bid. Depending on market, I might tell them to throw it back on the market to see where the prices settles at. I do think houses closures take too long here compared to other countries and a deposit should mean something so for example once you sign the deposit contract, that money is tied up contingent on survey report and no major issues with deeds. If you just have a change of heart. Tough you loose your deposit.

Sleeper12 · 13-07-2018 5:52pm

I've seen GDPR miss quoted several times on boards.ie but this is an example where the EA can't (by law) give out personal data

Sleeper12 · 13-07-2018 5:56pm

mvl wrote:

i am confused about something here: is it normal for a buyer to pay the deposit before a bidding process completes ? i thought the deposit is only paid by the person that gets the bid ?

Anyone can pay a deposit. Many do but it's only legal & binding when contract is signed. Otherwise the deposit means nothing

13-07-2018 6:32pm

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Anyone can pay a deposit. Many do but it's only legal & binding when contract is signed. Otherwise the deposit means nothing

Although fully refundable, it does mean something. Generally the EA will require it to declare the property "sale agreed" and to stop actively marketing it.

13-07-2018 6:48pm

Bob24 wrote: »

We submitted our offer and were eventually told it was the lowest one so we moved on. A few weeks later we saw the selling price on the property price register and it was clear we had been taken for a ride: the price was just 100 euros over our offer, for a property going for several hundred thousands and where the bid increments had been 1000 or 2000 euros. No way it could have happened by chance and clearly for whatever reason the EA wanted to sell to the other bidder but wanted first to generate a significantly increased offer from us to submit it to them and get them to pay that price.

I'll give you two legitimate possibilities;

1 you bid a round figure, but your competitor bid the same but added E100

in case somebody bid it round, always a good tactic.
or

2. The competitor bid a couple of thousand more than you, but in the survey or legal exam he found issues to threaten to withdraw and asked for a price reduction. The vendor, not wanting to lose the sale, agreed to the reduction but insisted his bottom line was that he had to give more than your offer. Thus he ended up E100 more than you.

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 7:25pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I'll give you two legitimate possibilities;

1 you bid a round figure, but your competitor bid the same but added E100

in case somebody bid it round, always a good tactic.
or

2. The competitor bid a couple of thousand more than you, but in the survey or legal exam he found issues to threaten to withdraw and asked for a price reduction. The vendor, not wanting to lose the sale, agreed to the reduction but insisted his bottom line was that he had to give more than your offer. Thus he ended up E100 more than you.

I really don’t see how the first one could have happened. We increased our previous bid by almost 15k but purposely didn’t make it a round figure. Keeping in mind that previous bid increments were 1000 or 2000, them being exactly 100 euros over our bid cannot possibly have happened by chance.

And after the EA emailed me to say our bid was the lowest I asked how far off we were and she came back saying she couldn’t give the exact figure but the wining bid was lower than xxxK (a figure meaning the other bid couldn’t have been mor than 2k over ours, which is another hint and tends to invalidate your second possibility as well).

Of course I can’t prove anything, but it all points towards the same direction!

I've also heard another funny story from friends about a different practicing that kind of secret maximum bid system (secret but not transparent and with no way to make sure the agent follows the set rules). We have bought another property since then so I won't have to go through it again anytime soon, but if someone I know was asked to go through this process, I'd tell them to do it only of the agent is willing to do it publicly via sealed envelopes all opened at the same time in front of all the bidders to make sure they don't do funny things in your back - and not to waste their time if the agent refuses.

April 73 · 13-07-2018 7:40pm

Bob24 wrote: »

I really don’t see how the first one could have happened. We increased our previous bid by almost 15k but purposely didn’t make it a round figure (and previous increments were 1000 or 2000). Them being exactly 100 euros over our bid cannot possibly have happened by chance.

And after the EA emailed me to say our bid was the lowest I asked how far off we were and she came back saying she couldn’t give the exact figure but the wining bid was lower than xxxK (a figure meaning the other bid couldn’t have been mor than 2k over ours, which is another hint and tends to invalidate your second possibility as well.

Of course I can’t prove anything, but it all points towards the same direction!

Sounds very fishy.

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 7:54pm

April 73 wrote: »

Sounds very fishy.

Indeed. To me what happened is that the seller was in a rush and couldn't wait for the biding process to end naturally (the agent had told us they were in a rush to sell when we first saw the place and we were in an ongoing bidding war for over 2 weeks after making our first offer), but was favouring the other bidder for what was probably a good reason for them (maybe they were a cash buyer which is good for a seller in a hurry as the sale is quicker - and the price indeed appeared on the PPR within about a month after our last bid was declined). So the agent probably just decided to use that trick to instantly get everyone's max figure and to ask the other bider to outbid ours if they wanted to proceed.

JustLen · 13-07-2018 8:02pm

Bob24 wrote: »

I really don’t see how the first one could have happened. We increased our previous bid by almost 15k but purposely didn’t make it a round figure. Keeping in mind that previous bid increments were 1000 or 2000, them being exactly 100 euros over our bid cannot possibly have happened by chance.

And after the EA emailed me to say our bid was the lowest I asked how far off we were and she came back saying she couldn’t give the exact figure but the wining bid was lower than xxxK (a figure meaning the other bid couldn’t have been mor than 2k over ours, which is another hint and tends to invalidate your second possibility as well).

Of course I can’t prove anything, but it all points towards the same direction!

I've also heard another funny story from friends about a different practicing that kind of secret maximum bid system (secret but not transparent and with no way to make sure the agent follows the set rules). We have bought another property since then so I won't have to go through it again anytime soon, but if someone I know was asked to go through this process, I'd tell them to do it only of the agent is willing to do it publicly via sealed envelopes all opened at the same time in front of all the bidders to make sure they don't do funny things in your back - and not to waste their time if the agent refuses.

Were you paying with cash or a loan?

Was other bidder paying by cash or a loan?

Did the other bidder give a legal undertaking to close by a certain date?

Did the other bidder make the offer uncoditional?

Did the other bidder give the impression they would be easier to deal with?

Unless you can answer all these questions you are only guessing as to what happened.

You dont know what happened.

If you wanted to offer more you should have offered it.

Bid the maximimum you are happy to pay for the property - if its not enough then be happy in the fact you didnt overpay.

Sick of these threads.

TheChizler · 13-07-2018 8:06pm

There's nothing stopping the agent telling a bidder the current highest bid, if it fit their strategy to get a higher price maybe it suited them to tell.

davo10 · 13-07-2018 8:15pm

Bob24, if the other bidder bid €1 more than you, then you are the underbidder in a final offer situation. Also, as stated above, sellers often favour cash bids, even if they are less than other financed bids, get over it, the EA always works for the seller, not the buyer.

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 8:15pm

JustLen wrote: »

Were you paying with cash or a loan?

Was other bidder paying by cash or a loan?

Did the other bidder give a legal undertaking to close by a certain date?

Did the other bidder make the offer uncoditional?

Did the other bidder give the impression they would be easier to deal with?

Unless you can answer all these questions you are only guessing as to what happened.

You dont know what happened.

If you wanted to offer more you should have offered it.

Bid the maximimum you are happy to pay for the property - if its not enough then be happy in the fact you didnt overpay.

Sick of these threads.

I don't think you fully read my posts.

JustLen · 13-07-2018 8:18pm

Bob24 wrote: »

I don't think you fully read my posts.

Were you paying cash?

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 8:19pm

davo10 wrote: »

Bob24, if the other bidder bid €1 more than you, then you are the underbidder in a final offer situation. Also, as stated above, sellers often favour cash bids, even if they are less than other financed bids, get over it.

I am very much over it and fully understand cash bids will be favoured, thank you (as I said in my posts).

What I said is that I strongly suspect the agent didn't follow the rules they had laid out. Nothing more.

Bob24 · 13-07-2018 8:20pm

JustLen wrote: »

Were you paying cash?

I already made clear in a previous post that I suspect the other bider was preferred because they were a cash buyer, so no.

davo10 · 13-07-2018 8:23pm

Bob24 wrote: »

I already made clear in a previous post that I suspect the other bider was preferred because they were a cash buyer, so no.

So what's your issue with the EA? The other bid was higher and possibly cash, both make the other bidder a more appealing bid to a seller? Are we missing something?

Identity of counter bidder

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