Counter offers can result in the original offer to purchase becoming invalid when bargaining for a property sale.
Steward says in today’s market buyers will in nine cases out of ten try to beat the price down by anything from 5 to 15% - and almost invariably the seller will resist this.
Sellers of residential property, says Lanice Steward, MD of Anne Porter Knight Frank, do not always realise that if they try to raise a buyer’s price by making a formal counter offer and write this into a proposed deed of sale for the buyer should the buyer then reject their suggested price, in most sale agreements the original offer falls away and becomes null and void.
Steward says in today’s market buyers will in nine cases out of ten try to beat the price down by anything from 5 to 15% - and almost invariably the seller will resist this.
If, however, (usually on the advice of the estate agent) the seller goes so far as to make a formal counter offer within the time frame proposed by the original offer, he must be aware that this invalidates that original offer.
The only exception to this standard practice is if a clause in the agreement specifically states that the original offer stands.
Making counter offers, says Steward, has resulted in the cancellation of a fair number of sales when, in fact, a tactful estate agent could have kept the bargaining process alive and possibly reached an agreement satisfactory to all.
“So sellers must be aware that if they harden their position by formally putting in a counter offer, they stand a very good chance of losing the buyer altogether.”
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