Offer to purchase question

Thank for all the advice guys. Hoping this will help someone else not make the same mistake as us.

Fck FOMO!
 
Sputnik100 said:
Offers for immovable property must be in writing (Alienation of Land Act). The WhatsApps and messages with a "counter offer" is no offer.
Most OTPs -- especially the standard pro forma ones from estate agents -- specifically state your offer is irrevocable until the expiry date/hour. If that is the case, all the stuff you talk about (counter-offers, agent who shouldn't have sent a message on your behalf, etc) becomes irrelevant, unfortunately.
If they sign by 18:00 tonight, it becomes a binding contract. If they don't, you're clear. They don't have to sign it in front of you. They just have to sign.
If you haven't received anything by 18:00, immediately put in in writing confirming that you haven't received a contract and that the offer therefore lapsed.
Good luck.
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Thanks. Going to be a long wait until 18h00 tonight unless we receive a written counter offer from the seller.

In which case we will just ignore it or straight up reject it after 18h00 tonight.

Am I correct?
 
And as luck would have it a nice property 2 blocks away from the kids' school just went on listing this morning.

And we actually know the owners. Reasonably good friends our ours' parents house. Been there before, had a lekker braai and even had a swim in the pool.
 
APoc184 said:
Thanks. Going to be a long wait until 18h00 tonight unless we receive a written counter offer from the seller.

In which case we will just ignore it or straight up reject it after 18h00 tonight.

Am I correct?
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Correct.
And the only reason I would put it on record at 18:00 that I haven't received anything, is that they may deliver a signed contract tomorrow and claim that they accepted it before it lapsed...
 
So phoned a friend of a friend of a friend... Who turns out to be a transferring attorney.

He also reckons the rejection and/or counter offer needs to be in writing from the sellers.

But also gave us quick advice.

Said we must make it sound like we are really so interested and desperate to still get the property and that that we would meet the seller halfway on his counter.

So immediately ask the agent to get a counter offer from the seller for R15k more or worse case R20k more. And ask her to send it ASAP for us to sign. But we have to make it sound like we are going to accept a higher counter offer.

When we receive the written counter offer, we simply play for time until 18h00 and state in writing that our original offer has lapsed and we withdraw it. And then reject their counter offer 5min later. Then never sign or verbally/whatsapp agree to anything else to be safe.

Luckily we never personally said that we are not willing to go higher on the price. Agent took it on herself to to tell the seller that in the hope of getting him to urgently sign the original OTP and not play hard ball with a counter offer.

Dammit man! Why were we this stupid!

Phoning the agent right now and hoping for the best.
 
The moment they make a counter offer in writing your first offer lapses, if you reject their written counter offer they can't try and revive your first offer.

The law does not work that way.
 
bokka1 said:
The moment they make a counter offer in writing your first offer lapses, if you reject their written counter offer they can't try and revive your first offer.

The law does not work that way.
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Thanks.

But just to be safe that all correct paperwork/amendments for the counter were done correctly we will withdraw and reject in quick succession.
 
APoc184 said:
Thanks.

But just to be safe that all correct paperwork/amendments for the counter were done correctly we will withdraw and reject in quick succession.
Click to expand...

The moment they make a counter offer then you have nothing to withdraw as there was no consensus between the parties with regard to the first offer. Afrikaans has a better word for it: Wilsooreenstemming.

Edit: You made an offer, they rejected it. So the offer is gone.
 
APoc184 said:
So phoned a friend of a friend of a friend... Who turns out to be a transferring attorney.

He also reckons the rejection and/or counter offer needs to be in writing from the sellers.

But also gave us quick advice.

Said we must make it sound like we are really so interested and desperate to still get the property and that that we would meet the seller halfway on his counter.

So immediately ask the agent to get a counter offer from the seller for R15k more or worse case R20k more. And ask her to send it ASAP for us to sign. But we have to make it sound like we are going to accept a higher counter offer.

When we receive the written counter offer, we simply play for time until 18h00 and state in writing that our original offer has lapsed and we withdraw it. And then reject their counter offer 5min later. Then never sign or verbally/whatsapp agree to anything else to be safe.

Luckily we never personally said that we are not willing to go higher on the price. Agent took it on herself to to tell the seller that in the hope of getting him to urgently sign the original OTP and not play hard ball with a counter offer.

Dammit man! Why were we this stupid!

Phoning the agent right now and hoping for the best.
Click to expand...
Nice!
I love a little bit of clever manoeuvring to get you out of a very sticky situation.

I'm also doing a pretty big purchase currently(not property) and also almost got burnt buying a lemon, a very pushy seller who managed to blah blah his way through my misgivings and then ratchet up the urgency, all of a sudden it's the deal of a century and I felt that I better take it or lose out.

Signed sale agreements and load shedding intervened before I could do the money transfer. Thank god, one sleepless night later and I told the seller I had to see the item one more time, saw it again in good weather and nope, no thanks, dodged a bullet.

Some people are devious as fk, they'll shaft you any day of the week, any time any place and they'll come from all races, ages and wealth brackets.

BUYER BEWARE 110%
 
Okay dokes.

According to all the advice here our original offer has lapsed. No signed original offer received.

BUT!!!

Agent sent us a voicenote at exactly 18h00 (DODGY) confirming that the seller has accepted our offer of 15k more and she will send us the docs on black and white just now.

I then immediately asked her if we should now sign the new document. She confirmed that we will have to sign next to the new amount on the documents. But then followed it up with a message that we can simply whatsapp her a confirmation that we accept the offer. Which of course we are never going to do.

I replied immediately and said we will then wait for the signed documents. And I said thank you.
She said My pleasure.

End of conversation and whatsapp communication.

Wife then emailed her and thanked her for the voicenote about the sellers accepting at a higher price. And asked in the email if we are correct in saying our original lower offer has now expired. And that we must then quickly sign to accept the new higher offer once we receive the signed documents from her.

Mail has been delivered to her. Not read or replied yet.
 
I had a kind of related experience as a seller...
Agent had a seller on the Sunday, then scheduled a meeting for the Monday, which they then postponed to the Wednesday. That's when I heard the deadline was in a couple of hours, and the offer was quite a bit lower than I wanted.

I asked them to ask the potential buyer if I could sleep on it and move the deadline out by 24 hours. They said yes, and then they went back on their word the next morning....

That agency (not the one starting with "Re", but their colours are similar, close to Clearwater Mall) struggled for months, and a different agent then sold it in a week with other offers in waiting.

Annoying AF, but it is what it is.
 
bokka1 said:
Withdraw your original offer immediately. Don't play any further games.
Click to expand...

DONE! Nicely worded email saying we officially withdraw our original offer after we didn't receive a signed and accepted offer from the sellers before Saturday 25 July @ 18h00.

Again. Very dodgy that she waited until the very last second to say they now accepted our offer of meeting them halfway. But no confirmed documents. Only a whatsapp voicenote.

And her wanting us to confirm via whatsapp that we accept the offer.
 
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