Gazumping: legal, common, and preventable
You offer, the seller accepts, you instruct a solicitor and pay for a survey. Three weeks later the agent calls: someone has offered more. You can match it or lose the house, and the money you have already spent goes with it.
That is gazumping, and in England and Wales it is perfectly legal. An accepted offer creates no obligation on either side until contracts are exchanged.
Why it keeps happening
The gap between offer and exchange runs to eight or twelve weeks, sometimes longer. For all that time the seller holds an option they did not pay for: they can take a better offer right up to the last moment, and the only thing stopping them is good manners.
Most sellers are not looking to gazump anyone. But when a higher offer lands unprompted, the agent has a duty to pass it on, and the seller has a decision to make that costs them nothing to get wrong from their side.
What does not really work
"Taking it off the market." Worth asking for, and worth getting in writing, but it is a courtesy rather than a commitment. Nothing stops the listing going back up.
Gazumping insurance. Reimburses some wasted costs if the sale collapses. Useful, but it pays out after you have lost the house — it does not stop you losing it.
Moving fast. Genuinely the best free tactic. Have your mortgage agreed, your solicitor instructed and your survey booked before you offer. A short timeline is a small window.
What does work
A reservation agreement signed by both sides. The buyer pays a reservation fee, held securely until exchange or refund of the fee as per the terms of the agreement. The property comes off the market. If the seller walks away to take a higher offer, the buyer's fee is returned and the seller is in breach of a commitment they actually made.
It works because it is mutual. The buyer has money at stake, so the seller knows they are serious; the seller has committed in writing, so the buyer can spend on a survey without wondering whether they are about to be outbid.
The fee sits on top of the price
A reservation fee is not part of the purchase price and is not credited against it. It is the cost of certainty for both sides, and it is held securely rather than paid to anyone, until exchange or refund under the terms of the agreement.
Scotland does it differently
Scottish missives create a binding contract much earlier in the process, which is why gazumping is rare there. England and Wales have debated reservation agreements for years without adopting them as standard, so for now they are something individual agents and buyers put in place themselves.
If your agent has not offered one, tell us who they are.
Common questions
What is gazumping?
Gazumping is when a seller accepts a higher offer from a second buyer after already accepting yours, before contracts are exchanged. It is entirely legal in England and Wales.
Is gazumping illegal in the UK?
No. In England and Wales nothing is binding until exchange of contracts, so a seller is free to accept a better offer at any point before that. In Scotland the position is different, because missives create a binding agreement far earlier.
How can a buyer avoid being gazumped?
Move quickly, keep the chain short, and ask for the property to be taken off the market in writing. The firmest option is a reservation agreement, under which the seller commits to you and the property comes off the market.